Activists raise concerns as nuclear site close to Cape Town given go-ahead

Daily Maverick

21 hours ago

South Africa is one step closer to a second nuclear power station after Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Minister Dion George last week upheld a contested, almost decade-old environmental authorisation.
South Africa's long-running bid to expand its nuclear power capacity has cleared a key and contentious hurdle. Environment Minister Dion George has upheld an environmental authorisation allowing Eskom to develop a new 4,000MW nuclear power station at Duynefontein, about 35km north of Cape Town.
The decision affirms a 2017 approval that had been under appeal for years. It paves the way for Eskom to pursue a nuclear build at the roughly 265-hectare site. That, however, does not mean shovels will hit the ground any time soon.
'In the end, my decision was made in respect of the principles of the National Environmental Management Act, 1998 (Act No. 107 of 1998), and with full appreciation of the environmental, social and economic considerations involved,' said George.
He said that the granting of an environmental authorisation 'does not exempt an applicant from complying with any other applicable legal requirements or obtaining permits from other competent authorities'.
The news is one step forward after a previous step back on the contested journey towards new nuclear capacity.
Daily Maverick previously reported that at the end of 2023, Minister of Energy and Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa announced that all the 'suspensive conditions' to start procuring 2,500MW of new nuclear power immediately had been met.
Months later, in August 2024, Ramokgopa announced that he would withdraw that gazette to procure new nuclear power capacity in response to the 'substantive' legal challenges posed by the Southern African Faith Communities' Environment Institute and Earthlife Africa Johannesburg — and that is where things have stood until George's announcement last week.
Government and industry proponents have hailed the move as a milestone. The South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa), in a statement, said it reflected confidence in nuclear technology as a contributor to the country's energy mix.
Necsa CEO Loyiso Tyabashe added that 'this approval marks an important milestone for the nuclear industry and South Africa's journey towards implementing a balanced energy mix that enables socioeconomic development and is climate friendly. The minister's decision shows rigour of the process that was followed to choose an appropriate site for nuclear new build and reflects confidence in nuclear technology as a safe, clean and reliable energy solution.'
While the environmental approval is a prerequisite, Eskom still faces a gauntlet of steps before any concrete is poured. These include securing licences, obtaining design and construction approvals, sourcing financing for what is likely to be a multihundred-billion-rand project, and government sign-off on procurement.
This drawn-out pathway is not just procedural. South Africa's last major nuclear procurement drive under former president Jacob Zuma collapsed amid allegations of secrecy and corruption risks and procedural failures.
Environmental activists, however, are not as welcoming of the news, warning that the country's financial, operational and governance challenges make a major nuclear build risky and unnecessary.
The 2018 Goldman Environmental Prize winners and anti-nuclear activists, Makoma Lekalakala and Liziwe McDaid, said in a statement that 'Earthlife Africa is considering the minister's decision and our next steps. Our concerns include the length of time taken to conduct the environmental impact assessment and to make the appeal decision.
'We are also deeply concerned about the affordability of nuclear power, particularly the high upfront capital costs, the risk of construction delays, and the cost overruns that have been experienced worldwide.
'In addition, there has been no assessment of the socioeconomic impacts of a major beyond-design-basis nuclear incident, nor of the generation of long-lived high-level radioactive waste for which no final disposal solution yet exists.'
Peter Becker, a former board member of the National Nuclear Regulator and anti-nuclear activist, told Daily Maverick that above and beyond these concerns, South Africa had bled the requisite nuclear industry expertise to safely operate a nuclear power station.
He also questioned the logic and application of timelines as they related to environmental authorisations.
'When an Environmental Assessment (EA) is issued, it has a time limit. This one had a 10-year limit. So the idea of having a 10-year expiry date on environmental authorisation is an acknowledgement that the environment might change.
'The surrounding population might change, the needs and desirability of the projects might change, and that is particularly true when it comes to such a fast-changing environment as the electricity sector where we are seeing disruptive changes. And those disruptive changes are in terms of dramatic learning curves and dropping of prices of alternative sources of energy, such as renewables, battery storage, etc, and also vast changes in demographics.
'So there's a bit of a gap in the legal system in this country in that once an EA is issued, you can appeal it, and that suspends the EA, but when does the expiry start?'
Becker explained that depending on how this was interpreted legally, it could either mean Eskom would need to begin construction at the site within less than two years, or the 10-year period started only on Friday after the minister's approval. In the time since the original approval, the underlying expert information that informed that original authorisation may have significantly changed.
The July 2023 Review of Environmental Impact Report and Specialist Studies commissioned for Eskom largely confirms as much. That review concluded that the 2017 Environmental Authorisation can still stand without re-assessing impacts, even though much of the underlying data and assumptions are more than 10 years old.
This is significant because the review was not a technical re-evaluation. It assumed the original data and impact findings were correct, focusing instead on whether or not they were still relevant.
Moreover, the review admits that the original statement that renewables 'could not provide adequate baseload' may 'no longer be correct' due to rapid renewable energy development since the Environmental Impact Assessment was finalised.
This is important because it validates a key argument used by those opposed to new nuclear capacity: that the energy context has changed and might affect the rationale for new nuclear energy. DM