TRISTEN TAYLOR: At Koeberg, safety delayed is safety denied

In November 2014 Eskom called together a group of local and international experts to address the serious cracking, corrosion and delamination that was affecting Koeberg’s containment buildings, especially those of unit 2. The panel’s task was to investigate how to halt the damage and ensure both units would be safe for a long-term operation (LTO) to extend Koeberg’s life for another 20 years. 

A January 2015 expert report reads that “the containment structures are at a very advanced state of reinforcement corrosion damage, and future reinforcement corrosion damage in presently unrepaired areas is expected to develop exponentially with time”. Moreover, the experts pointed out that unless a long-term solution was found “the end of the operational service life of the containment structures may be reached soon”.

The experts analysed a series of potential long-term repairs and settled on impressed current cathodic protection (ICCP), which would halt the corrosion of the containment buildings’ reinforcing steel. ICCP is not a new technology and the experts helpfully provided Eskom with a list of eight recommended contractors. Regarding a timeline, the experts based their findings on the assumption that the ICCP system “will be installed in the coming two to three years”.

Fast forward to 2022 and ICCP is nowhere in sight. An Eskom 2022 internal engineering report on the containment building notes that corrosion will lead to “the degradation of the structures to a point where they have to be decommissioned, if no long-term modifications are implemented. ICCP has to be implemented as a matter of urgency.”

This same report gives an aspirational ICCP installation date of July 1 2023, a planned date of November 1 2024 and a costing of R140m. That’s not a huge outlay in the context of a nuclear power plant.

Monitoring system

And where are we now? When the National Nuclear Regulator (NNR) granted a 20-year licence extension for unit 1 in July, one of the conditions was that ICCP be implemented in 2025, which is rather emblematic of the NNR and Eskom’s general approach to Koeberg. There’s a serious safety issue that is common cause — everyone agrees that ICCP is urgent — but the implementation and regulation of which is consistently delayed. 

Don’t hold your breath on a 2025 completion, especially as Eskom was first aware of the corrosion problem in 2000. If Eskom misses the deadline the NNR will sternly inform the company of the new deadline.

If corroding reinforcing steel wasn’t bad enough, the containment structure monitoring system isn’t functioning fully and hasn’t been for a while. In 2022 the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) did an inspection to determine whether Koeberg was safe for an LTO. The agency ruled that “without a fully functional containment monitoring system not all necessary data for the containment structure will be available to demonstrate the intended safety function during LTO”.

The intended safety function is aimed at knowing whether the containment structure will hold in a meltdown. The IAEA said Eskom “should ensure full functionality of the containment structure monitoring system”. Short-term repairs to the cracking and corroding concrete might have, in the IAEA’s opinion, contributed to the monitoring system’s decay. 

Failure anticipated

Framatome, the plant’s builder, is concerned about the monitoring system and the lack of ICCP. Koeberg still doesn’t have a fully functioning monitoring system. While restoring the system is now a condition of the LTO licence, the system will only be brought to full functionality in Outages 129 and 229. Surreally, the NNR refused to tell Business Day when these outages would be. After some prodding, Eskom told Business Day that the 60-day outages were planned for January 2029 and 2030, but that those dates could change. 

Again, here is something that is common cause, something important that should be done but hasn’t been. Eskom noted defective parts of the system (invar wire stations) in 2004 and in its 2022 engineering report Eskom wrote of the invar wires that “no mitigation in place and failure is anticipated”. 

Safety first has become safety postponed. Emergency drills in 2022 and 2023, stimulations of an accident and subsequent release of radiation, revealed an almost Keystone Cops state of affairs. The main problem goes far beyond the NNR’s 2023 drill observation that “the designated toilets and ablution facilities were not functioning because they were not accessible and there was no water”.

The drills’ shortcomings are more than the 2022 decontamination shower debacle. While the shower did have water to clean off “contaminated” individuals, the now “radioactive” water was allowed to spread unhindered across the ground. 

Correspondence over the past two years between the NNR and Eskom reveals wider failures, such as traffic and law enforcement’s inability in 2023 to secure the exercise area. The NNR states that “Edgemead library users were observed to use parking space designated for response organisations”. 

Decontamination

The SA National Defence Force did not attend in 2022 because its specialised unit had been disbanded. When the navy and army did arrive in 2023, they didn’t have dosimeters. The department of social development didn’t pitch up at the first and was unprepared for the second.

Tygerberg Hospital’s whole body radiation counter was found to be obsolete and unmaintained. The light wasn’t working properly in the hospital’s shower, making “decontamination difficult”. A Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals veterinarian didn’t come because of budget. And so on. 

In its LTO assessment the NNR politely says off-site functionaries such as those listed above displayed deficiencies. As a condition of licence Eskom has to sit down with the City of Cape Town, which hardly covered itself in glory during the drills, and come up with a plan. The deadline is December 2025, which raises the question: what happens between now and then? 

The NNR granted a licence for continued operation despite the disaster response exercises being, well, disasters. If there is a real nuclear accident the only way to limit the chaos is to have a properly trained and efficient emergency response from all parties.

At a minimum, Eskom has to hold at least one stimulation of an accident that passes the highest safety standards before being allowed to operate a nuclear plant. Sitting around in 2025 and writing a document with city officials doesn’t cut it. 

The licence decision for unit 1 kicks a raft of necessary fixes and modifications down the road. Koeberg shouldn’t have outstanding repairs, things such as ICCP and the containment monitoring system. After 40 years of operation the emergency drills should be flawless.

The regulator enables Eskom’s addiction to missed deadlines, delay and unnecessary risks. And that is how we are now in the most bizarre of situations, having to doubt the safety of a nuclear power plant ticking away in the shadow of a city of 5-million people. 

• Dr Taylor, a freelance journalist and photographer, is a research fellow in environmental ethics at Stellenbosch University.