Response from Eskom to our appeal against the Environmental Authorisation for Koeberg Nuclear site

Title page of response from Eskom to the KAA appeal

Back in 2007, Eskom began an Environmentam fcl Impact Assessment (EIA) for building a large new nuclear power plant on the Koeberg site, about 28km north of Cape Town. Ten years later, after many drafts and submissions, the Department of Environmental Affairs issued an Environmental Authorisation for the project to go ahead. Many organisations appealed this decision, and Eskom was required to respond in detail to the content of each of those appeals, which they have now done (in August 2018).

Many of these responses were combined into one document, which has been widely distributed. However, KAA received the following 115 page specific response. There has not been time to go through it in detail yet, but it is published below to give you all the opportunity to have a look through it and pass it on to others.

Paging through it, a few bits stood out for me.

A tourism plus…
In a show of optimism regarding possible impacts of tourism, Eskom writes “Some nuclear power stations have a positive effect on tourism, as tourists visit specifically to see the stations.”

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Appeal against Environmental Authorisation for Koeberg

After a long Environmental Impact Assessment which began in 2007, an Environmental Authorisation was issued for the Koeberg site, 26km north of Cape Town.  This gave Eskom permission to build a new nuclear plant of unspecified design, plus a nuclear waste reprocessing and/or disposal site.

At first only 30 days were allowed for appeals against this decision, and this was extended on the day of the deadline to about 90 days, until 5th March 2017. There are so many reasons this Authorisation was wrong, and we tried to describe some of them in the 43 page submission we wrote. Continue reading

High Court blasts nuclear plans

Jubilant activists celebrate on the steps of the High Court

A case against the Department of Energy, the Minister of Energy and Eskom was brought by SAFCEI and EarthLife Africa Johannesburg recently.  Today judgement was handed down by Judge Bozalek, and it surprised everyone.  He granted every single request of the plaintiffs!  He also gave a costs order against the government. Continue reading

From Russia, with Liability

The minister of Energy signed an agreement with Russia in September 2014. More recently made a ministerial determination to allow Eskom to go ahead with the procurement of nuclear plants for South Africa.  The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) had concurred with this determination.  I sat in for the final day of the three day high court hearings questioning the legality of these dealings.

Drawing of advocate Oosthuisen arguing before the high court, with advocate Unterhalter and assistant

Advocate Oosthuisen driving home a point

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Nuclear reactors for Thyspunt have been ordered

This is according to the World Nuclear Association, which describes itself as “the only international industry organisation with a global mandate to communicate about nuclear energy”, and has members which include Rosatom, the Russian nuclear power company, as well as Areva of France, KEPCO of Korea, and many others.Ordered reactors from Russia close up Continue reading