Breaking nuke ground will bring its own power struggle

Under the "leadership" (for lack of a better word) of former president Jacob Zuma – now in hospital-cushioned custody for defying the instructions of the Constitutional Court – nuclear energy became highly politicised.

This was because of the widespread suspicion that the Zuma administration was determined to cut corners in the planned procurement of some 9.6 GW of nuclear energy in a multibillion-rand new build project involving Rosatom, the Russian State Nuclear Energy Corporation.

In 2008, the South African government began a process to invest in additional nuclear power in a drive to meet the country’s growing electricity demands. Government had first signalled its intention to investigate nuclear as a source of additional energy in the 1998 White Paper on Energy Policy.

This followed reports that demand for energy had grown in line with economic growth at the time and that South Africa’s existing fleet of power plants, most of which burned fossil fuels, notably coal, were ageing and, in some cases, almost reaching their decommissioning age. Government took almost ten years to act on the report before it began to put measures in place to invest in additional electricity generation.

It eventually launched its nuclear new build procurement process in 2008 by first announcing, then issuing a Request for Proposals (RFP). It was clear at the time that with positive economic growth, electricity demand would surpass supply and force government into an era of controlled power cuts aimed at bringing demand under control.

Only the multinational French nuclear giant, Areva - which has now reverted to its original name, Framatome - and American-Japanese Westinghouse, were contenders during that first RFP process. But the entire process was discontinued at the end of that year.

Following the development of the country’s National Development Plan (NDP), adopted in 2012, expected economic growth was estimated at the rate of 5.4% per annum. Parallel to this, and informed by the thinking around it, the country developed an Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) 2010-2030, which was to serve as its blueprint for the sourcing of energy into the future.

The economic performance and estimated growth figures used as reference for the IRP were the same ones that informed the NDP. In addition to historic backlogs in the provision of electricity to residential areas, particularly in rural areas, the country had also begun to experience a rapidly urbanising population at the time.

South Africa already boasts the only nuclear power station in Africa, Koeberg, just outside of Cape Town. The construction of Koeberg by Framatome was started in the mid-1970s and completed in the early 1980s, when it got commissioned.

Various estimates had placed the total cost of the planned investment in the 9.6 GW of nuclear new build for South Africa in excess of R1 trillion. This was going to happen in a country known for huge inequalities between the rich and the poor a result of, among other factors, apartheid-inherited racial socioeconomic inequalities and high levels of and widespread post-apartheid corruption. In making this investment choice, government had to consider the possible impact on its limited resources, particularly in as far as the delivery of other crucial public services was concerned.

In a critical 2016 opinion piece, energy expert Anton Eberhard wrote: "We face a possible credit rating downgrade to junk, which will make us all poorer: it will cost a lot more to service our debt, there will be less money for social programmes, the rand will fall even further, and inflation will rise. Yet some still promote a huge nuclear programme that is not needed, that is more expensive and risky than alternative energy sources, that is hard to finance, and that will create contingent liabilities for the Treasury when we can least afford them."

The subsequent credit ratings downgrade of South Africa by Fitch and Moody’s was announced during the first half of 2017, following the removal of former finance minister Pravin Gordhan his deputy, Mcebisi Jonas, from their positions. Both men had often been described as principled and were well respected by the markets.

In May 2017, the Western Cape High Court ruled that government’s decision to call for proposals for the procurement of 9.6 GW of nuclear energy was unlawful. This followed the court challenge of the procurement process by Earthlife Africa and the Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute (SAFCEI), who argued that government failed to run a transparent procurement process. (EWN, May 2017). Their opposition to the procurement process was also based on concerns for costs when they argued that taxpayers could not afford the trillion-rand bill to enter into such deals.??

With Zuma’s removal from office in early 2018, South Africa’s plans to invest in nuclear new build seemed to be indefinitely taken off the table. The Russians were reported to be most unhappy with this turn of events. But the mention of nuclear energy has always elicited strong emotions in many people who, armed with memories of nuclear accidents and incidents in Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima, among others, will hear none of it.

This remains the case even when very few people will deny that despite high initial construction costs, nuclear energy, unlike fossil fuels, is clean and environmentally safer, provided the plants can withstand massive external forces, including tsunamis and earthquakes, and that the disposal of nuclear waste can be safely disposed of into perpetuity.

Given the sentiments against nuclear energy, as well as the sorry state of South Africa’s economy following some 15 years of state capture and what has become endemic, rampant, corruption - and also considering ongoing, serialised revelations of graft in the construction of Medupi and Kusile power stations - can the South African government safely restart a discussion about investing in nuclear new build without provoking an uprising?????