Nuclear-1 a certainty?

By Melanie Gosling

Eskom appears to be kickstarting its massive nuclear energy plans again.

The utility, which halted its nuclear bidding programme for Nuclear-1 in December last year, has now revised its application to the environmental authorities, asking to be allowed to combine authorisations to develop Nuclear-1, Nuclear-2 and Nuclear-3 power stations at all three coastal sites earmarked for the nuclear programme.

The three sites are Bantamsklip near Pearly Beach in the Overstrand, Thyspunt near Oyster Bay in the Eastern Cape and the Koeberg site of Dynefontein 30km north of Cape Town. At the start of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) the three places were to be assessed as alternative sites for the proposed Nuclear-1.

Now, because of amendments to the environmental legislation which are in the pipeline, Eskom has applied to Water and Environment Affairs to "sequentially construct" nuclear power plants at all three sites in a combined application, starting with Dynefontein, followed by Bantamsklip and Thyspunt.

"Thus specialists will no longer be required to compare, rank and provide recommendations with respect to a single preferred site", but will only compare different layouts and positioning of the nukes on each site.

The application includes the "roll-out dates" for the first three nuclear power stations: site preparation for Nuclear-1 will start in January next year and the nuke will come online in July 2018; site preparation for Nuclear-2 will begin in January 2013 and come online in July 2020 and Nuclear-3 site preparation start in January 2015 and come online in July 2022.

Read the full story in the Cape Times