NEIL OVERY | Eskom’s nuclear push clashes with just transition goals

In 1849 French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr coined his famous phrase: “The more things change, the more they stay the same”. Karr’s dictum perfectly describes Eskom and the government’s increasingly desperate attempts to justify new nuclear power.

Having previously utterly failed to justify it on cost, the government is claiming nuclear power in the form of small modular reactors is ideally placed to deliver South Africa’s just energy transition from polluting coal.

Justifying nuclear power on cost is already absurd, and claiming it supports a just transition is a close second as it meets none of the criteria. Yet, Eskom’s chief nuclear officer, Velaphi Ntuli, recently said small modular reactors would be deployed at sites where coal-fired power stations are to be retired as part of a “coal to nuclear strategy” because “the just transition has to be just”.

The primary objective of a just transition is to ensure jobs are not lost as coal-fired power stations and their mines are retired. To this end, Ntuli said “international studies” show up to 77% of coal jobs could be repurposed for nuclear, which is a promising assertion.

This figure also appears in a report from G20 South Africa’s Energy Transition Working Group and the International Atomic Energy Agency, “Coal to Nuclear Supporting a Clean Energy Transition”. However, the legitimacy of the figure is highly suspect. Despite Ntuli’s reference to “international studies”, the figure is sourced from a 2021 promotional publication from NuScale, a private American small modular reactor company that is doing all it can to promote its failed small modular reactor technology.

It is a company teetering on the brink of bankruptcy because it has no confirmed orders (its last quarter loss was more than $500m) and is facing a multimillion-dollar class action lawsuit in the US for alleged securities fraud involving the alleged misrepresentation of the nuclear engineering capabilities of a key NuScale partner organisation.

It is this highly subjective “evidence” from NuScale that Eskom and the government are using to try to convince South Africans that small modular reactors can deliver a just transition. Such an attempt reeks of desperation because even if small modular reactors were a commercially viable technology, which an overwhelming amount of evidence shows they are unlikely ever to be, they do not meet the requirements of a just transition.

The presidential climate commission’s “A Framework for a Just Transition in South Africa”, published in 2022, is based on what it describes as “progressive principles”: distributive, restorative and procedural justice. The framework notes these principles are the “underpinning” of “a just transition towards an environmentally sustainable economy and society in South Africa”.

Distributive justice is concerned with ensuring the risks and opportunities of the transition are fairly distributed, meaning workers and communities around coal-fired power stations are given fair access to jobs and wider economic opportunities when stations are retired. However, in terms of jobs, one of the main arguments made by small modular reactor proponents is that they will be cheaper to run than conventional nuclear power stations as they demand fewer staff because, in the words of the International Atomic Energy Agency, they are (theoretically) “simpler and quicker to build, operate, inspect, maintain and repair”.

The promise of jobs is, therefore, hollow. As Newcastle University researchers exploring the jobs potential of small modular reactors in Britain noted, small modular reactors will only provide “limited long-term local jobs”, exposing how questionable the 77% retention claim is in the face of real-world evidence and not commercial hype. The local job opportunities provided in South Africa are likely to be fewer still, given the exodus of nuclear skills from the country over the past decade or more.

As Newcastle University researchers exploring the jobs potential of small modular reactors in Britain noted, small modular reactors will only provide “limited long-term local jobs”, exposing how questionable the 77% retention claim is in the face of real-world evidence and not commercial hype.

In terms of wider economic development, evidence shows conventional nuclear power stations increase electricity costs which, as South Africans know all too well, suppress economic growth. All the evidence indicates small modular reactors, if they are ever commercialised, are likely to produce electricity at even higher costs than conventional nuclear power stations, suppressing economic growth yet further.

Restorative justice refers to addressing damage done to communities and the environment by healing people and landscapes. It also refers to facilitating greater economic inclusion and ownership for previously marginalised communities. Small modular reactors also fail spectacularly in these terms. Like conventional nuclear power stations, small modular reactors will need to have safety exclusion zones around them where people cannot live due to the threat of serious nuclear accidents.

Koeberg nuclear power station in Cape Town has two such zones — the precautionary action zone, which includes everything within a 5km radius of the power plant, and the urgent [protective] action zone, which extends from 5km to 16km. The precautionary action zone restricts residential developments so rapid evacuations can take place. Does this mean people who live within 5km of coal-fired power stations will be forcibly removed from their homes when a small modular reactor replaces a coal plant?

Small modular reactors also produce high-level nuclear waste, which remains deadly to life for hundreds of thousands of years, hardly consistent with healthy environments.

Due to their extremely high costs, technical complexity, centralisation and security concerns, community economic inclusion in small modular reactor ownership is no more than a fantasy.

Procedural justice means giving everyone, including workers and community members, a meaningful role to play in just transition policymaking. Above all, it means collaboration and participatory decision-making. Evidence shows that decisions about nuclear power are made at a very high level, shielded from public scrutiny on the basis that security is paramount. Public participation around nuclear power in South Africa has failed on multiple occasions in the courts, and there is nothing to suggest anything will be different for small modular reactors.

The more things change, the more they do indeed stay the same when it comes to Eskom and the government’s nuclear power ambitions, as all justifications for their inclusion in South Africa’s energy future unravel under scrutiny. Nuclear power will never, in any form, be consistent with the urgent requirement for a genuinely just transition in South Africa.

• Dr Overy, a freelance researcher, writer and photographer, is a research associate at Environmental Humanities South, University of Cape Town.