Appeal against Environmental

Authorisation for Nuclear-1

12/12/20/994
Submitted March 2017

Table of Contents
1. Introduction..........................................................................................................................................4
2. Overview of the EIA Process...............................................................................................................4
3. Specific Problems with the Processes..................................................................................................5
3.1. High Level Nuclear Waste............................................................................................................5
3.1.1. Authorisation for waste repository at Koeberg.................................................................5
3.1.2. Environmental Impacts of Waste Disposal not Assessed..................................................5
3.2. Announcement by Minister of Finance re Delays........................................................................6
3.3. Seismic Risk at Critical Level for Koeberg Site...........................................................................6
3.4. Seismic Study not Complete.........................................................................................................7
3.4.1. Outdated Seismic Methodology........................................................................................7
3.4.2. Possible Seismic Effects of Climate Change Ignored.......................................................7
3.4.3. Admitted to be Inadequate................................................................................................8
3.4.4. Blatantly Unscientific and Misleading..............................................................................9
3.4.5. Bias on Part of EAP and Specialists..................................................................................9
3.4.6. Transferring Obligation to the Applicant........................................................................10
3.4.7. Delays Due to Financial Constraints...............................................................................10
3.4.8. Department also Queries Availability of Updated Seismic Study...................................11
3.4.9. Last Minute Change by Peer Reviewer...........................................................................11
3.4.10. Refusal by the NNR and Applicant to Provide SSR.....................................................12
3.5. Missing Documents and Conflict of Interest..............................................................................13
3.5.1. No Peer Review of the Final Version of Geohydrology Report......................................13
3.5.2. Conflict of Interest in Geohydrology and Other Reports by SRK..................................13
3.5.3. Missing Peer Review of Waste Assessment....................................................................13
3.6. Misrepresentation of Specialist Reports.....................................................................................14
3.6.1. Oceanographic Assessment.............................................................................................14
3.6.2. Social Assessment...........................................................................................................14
3.6.3. Economic Assessment.....................................................................................................15
3.6.4. Heritage Impact Assessment...........................................................................................15
3.6.5. Tourism Impact Assessment............................................................................................15
3.6.6. Seismic Hazard Assessment............................................................................................15
3.7. Insufficient Public Participation Meetings in Cape Town..........................................................15
3.7.1. Refusal to Hold Public Meeting in Southern Suburbs....................................................15
3.7.2. No Access to Public Meetings for Residents in Khayelitsha..........................................16
3.8. Refusal of EAP to Incorporate Pertinent Data............................................................................17
3.9. Change Logs...............................................................................................................................19

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4. Specific Problems with Technical Content.........................................................................................19
4.1. Seismic Risk Analysis................................................................................................................19
4.1.1. Forty Year Old Study Used.............................................................................................20
4.1.2. Missing Information which will Impact Costs................................................................20
4.1.3. Academic Criticism of Seismic Study.............................................................................21
4.1.4. Insufficient Data to Make a Site Selection......................................................................21
4.1.5. Insufficiently Qualified Peer Reviewer...........................................................................21
4.1.6. Bias of EAP in Judging Seismic Study to be Adequate..................................................21
4.1.7. No Impact Assessment Done for Possible Earthquake Induced Catastrophic Accident. 22
4.2. Flawed and biased Economic Report (Appendix E17)..............................................................22
4.2.1. Vendors not Members of EPRI.......................................................................................22
4.2.2. Updated EPRI (2015) Report Ignored.............................................................................22
4.2.3. Unsubstantiated and False Statements............................................................................22
4.2.4. Refuelling Downtime Ignored.........................................................................................23
4.2.5. Suspicion of bias.............................................................................................................23
4.3. Geohydrology Report.................................................................................................................24
4.4. Wikipedia is not a Valid Scientific Reference............................................................................25
4.5. Evacuation Zone of 800m...........................................................................................................25
4.5.1. No Government has Approved an 800m Zone................................................................26
4.5.2. The Department Shares our Concern..............................................................................26
4.5.3. EAP Misleads the Department re 800m Zone.................................................................26
4.6. High Level Radioactive Waste/Spent Fuel.................................................................................27
4.6.1. Potential Impact of Cooling Pond Failure not Assessed.................................................27
4.6.2. Directive from Department not Followed.......................................................................27
4.6.3. Inaccurate Quantification of High Level Waste..............................................................28
4.6.4. Missing Peer Review.......................................................................................................28
4.7. Beyond Design Basis Accident Report.......................................................................................28
4.7.1. Impact not Assessed........................................................................................................28
4.7.2. Circular Reasoning..........................................................................................................28
4.7.3. Probability of Large Scale Accident................................................................................29
4.8. Scoring System with Examples..................................................................................................30
4.8.1. Department Queries Scoring and Weighting System......................................................31
4.8.2. Scoring System not Peer Reviewed................................................................................31
4.8.3. Unscientific Methodology in Ranking of Risk...............................................................31
4.8.4. Invalid Post-hoc Scoring System....................................................................................31
4.8.5. Various Environmental Factors Ignored in Value Driven Approach...............................32
4.8.6. Inadequate Response from EAP......................................................................................32
4.8.7. Hypothetical Example to Demonstrate Inadequacy........................................................33
4.8.8. Scoring system remedy required.....................................................................................33
4.9. Insufficient Attention to Alternatives..........................................................................................33
4.9.1. No-go Option not Adequately Assessed..........................................................................33
4.9.2. Unsubstantiated Characterisation of Nuclear Power.......................................................34
4.9.3. Alternative Use of Land..................................................................................................34
4.9.4. Disruptive Technology Convergence..............................................................................35
4.10. Intentional Overstatement of Need...........................................................................................35
4.11. Trivialisation of Threat of Terrorist Attack...............................................................................35
5. Other Reasons for Appealing.............................................................................................................37
5.1. Fresh Water Usage and Drought.................................................................................................37
5.2. Unaffordable...............................................................................................................................37
5.3. Falsely Represented as a Solution to Climate Change...............................................................37
5.4. Making a Long Term Commitment to a Dying Industry............................................................37

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 5.5. Risk of Time and Cost Overruns................................................................................................38
5.6. Inflexibility of Project Inappropriate to an Uncertain Environment..........................................39
5.7. Invalid Scoping out of Other Sites.............................................................................................39
5.8. Agricultural study fails to quantify economic impacts...............................................................40
5.9. Botany Assessment.....................................................................................................................40
5.10. Alternatives Insufficiently Studied w.r.t. Job Creation.............................................................40
5.11. Chapter 7 Methodology Removed............................................................................................41
6. Summary............................................................................................................................................41
6.1. Key Factors in Making the Authorisation...................................................................................41
6.1.1. a) Need for Increased Baseload.......................................................................................41
6.1.2. b) Supported by the IRP..................................................................................................41
6.1.3. c) EIR is Adequate..........................................................................................................41
6.1.4. d) Specialist Studies of a High Standard.........................................................................41
6.1.5. e) Public Participation Process was Comprehensive......................................................41
6.1.6. f) All Legal and Procedural Requirements met...............................................................42
6.2. Remedial Action Required..........................................................................................................42
7. Conclusion..........................................................................................................................................42
8. List of Attachments............................................................................................................................42
9. Notes for authors - Documents still to read/check through................................................................43
9.1. APP B4 Authority Correspondence RDEIR v1.pdf....................................................................43
9.2. DEAT's letter of 19 November...................................................................................................43
9.2.1. Has not addressed ….......................................................................................................43
9.2.2. Oceanography report.......................................................................................................43

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1. Introduction
This document has been prepared by the Koeberg Alert Alliance (KAA) in response to an
authorisation issued by the Department of Environmental Affairs for Eskom's proposed Nuclear-1
project. All statements made in this appeal represent the opinion of one or more of the contributors.
We would like to start by making an appeal to the Department to encourage the applicant to withdraw
this application immediately. In the region of R30m has been spent to date on consultants during the
EIA, as well as other extensive internal expenses for Eskom staff such as travel and accommodation.
Eskom can ill afford this money, and it would be morally reprehensible to continue to throw good
money after bad, when it is publicly accepted that Eskom cannot afford a nuclear plant and that the
country currently has no need for the extra electricity. This is particularly true in light of the fact that
Eskom relies on bailouts from government, which means that this pointless expenditure directly
affects the ability of government to provide services to the poor.
What is more, from the detailed legal and scientific criticism contained in the many appeals against
this authorisation, we believe it is fatally flawed and has no prospect of withstanding a judicial review.
If Eskom or the Department are put in a position where they need to defend their position in court, that
would be a significant additional waste of time and money in terms of legal fees and the likely costs
order that will result.

2. Overview of the EIA Process

There have been four “rounds” in this EIA: the first draft, the first “final” revised draft, the second
revised draft, and the final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) submitted to the Department of
Environment. Due to the confusing nature of this terminology, we refer these four versions as round
one to round four.
We also refer to 'the Department' to mean the Department of Environmental affairs, the Department of
Economic Affairs Environment and Tourism, or the Department of Environmental Affairs and
Tourism, as this name changed during the process of this EIA.
The EIA process began in July 2008, and the round one EIR was made available in early 2010. Much
of the data and scientific research referenced was already at that stage several years old, which means
that some conclusions reached in the final EIR are based on science of a decade or more ago.
KAA has made detailed submissions for each of the first three rounds, and many points raised have
been dealt with inadequately. This document should therefore be read in conjunction with our
submissions of June 2010, of August 2011, and December 2015, which are attached.
One of the focal points of KAA has been seismic risk at the Koeberg/Duynefontein site. The Seismic
Hazard specialist report submitted for rounds two, three and four are identical, and has not been
updated since the Fukushima nuclear accident, which was triggered by a seismic event.
Another focal point is the omission of highly pertinent electricity demand data from a graph
prominently displayed at the beginning of the Need and Desirability chapter. This gives a false view

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of the need for the project, and despite numerous interactions and requests, the consultants from Gibb
(EAPs) refused to put this relevant data before the decision maker.
These and other issues are dealt with in more detail below.

3. Specific Problems with the Processes

3.1. High Level Nuclear Waste
3.1.1. Authorisation for waste repository at Koeberg
The authorisation includes “The construction of facilities or infrastructure … for … reprocessing
storage or disposal of nuclear fuels, radioactive products and waste;” on page 6, point 1(b).
This stands in contrast to what is written in the Waste Assessment study, APP E29: “The waste
unsuitable for disposal at Vaalputs will be stored on site until a suitable facility is available.” and “...
there is no intention to reprocess the Nuclear-1 Nuclear Power Station spent fuel at present”
Chapter three of the final EIR is also clear: “The spent fuel is then relocated to dual-purpose casks
(storage and transport) for transfer to a national repository”.
So while the EIR was clear that it did not cover final waste disposal, nor waste reprocessing, both of
these activities have been included in the authorisation. The public have therefore had no opportunity
to engage meaningfully with the issues around these possible activities.
On this point alone, the authorisation is invalid, and must be withdrawn, or at the very least, altered to
remove this wording.

3.1.2. Environmental Impacts of Waste Disposal not Assessed

No site or confinement technology has been decided on for the final disposal of the high level
radioactive waste. Since this waste is an inevitable consequence of building a nuclear plant, without
identifying a site or a technology, it is not possible to assess the potential impact of this waste on the
environment.
Assessing the potential impact of waste should be an integral part of any EIR. Any attempt to explain
away this obligation by saying the actual waste disposal will be done by another body or agency is
merely an attempt to subvert the intention of NEMA and exposes the country to incremental decision
making.
The EAP wrote to several IAPs “Although there has not been a detailed assessment of nuclear waste
given the fact that disposal is strictly governed by the requirements of the NNR, the assumption in the
EIA is that such waste can be safely disposed despite its long-lived nature.” To simply assume that in
the future there will be a safe and affordable way to deal with the waste subverts the aim of an EIA
process, and must be seen as a fatal flaw.
Apart from the legal and economic issues, it would be morally reprehensible to leave this problem to
our children, and their children, for thousands of years without knowing for sure that it will be safely

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dealt with.

3.2. Announcement by Minister of Finance re Delays

As reported widely in the press, ex Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba stated in February 2018 that
South Africa will not be able to afford to go ahead with this nuclear build for 'maybe five years'.
As detailed elsewhere in this appeal, a significant amount of data, research and methodology on which
the EIR is based is already outdated. One example is the Need and Desirability section, which quotes
the IRP 2010 as justification for a nuclear build. The IRP 2010 used data from 2008, and that would
be a decade out of date if the build started today. Given that the build will definitely not happen for
five years, it will be at least 2023 when this project is reconsidered. The authorisation is valid for ten
years, so could be used to begin construction in 2028. Even if work starts on just the access road, for
example, by 2028, then this authorisation can legally be used to justify the building of a nuclear
reactor at that site at any time in the future.
By 2028, some of the information used in the EIR will be two decades old! None of it would be less
than a decade old. Given the rapid changes in pertinent factors, such as population densities and the
technological advances in other forms of power generation, it would be unconscionable to give an
environmental authorisation now which allows this project to go ahead so far in the future.
To remedy this, this authorisation must be withdrawn, and the applicant told to resubmit a new EIR
using up-to-date data and methodology should they wish to proceed with the project in five or more
years' time.

3.3. Seismic Risk at Critical Level for Koeberg Site

The EAP wrote in the document APP B3 GIBB Response to the DEA letter dated 10.05.10.pdf:
“As far as the site selection of a nuclear power station is concerned, the seismic
characteristics of the site are key. Seismic suitability is assessed in Section 9.4 of the Draft EIR
and in Appendix E4. As stated in the Draft EIR, the Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA) values
for Duynefontein, Bantamsklip and Thyspunt are 0.3 g, 0.23 g and 0.16 g respectively. As
stated on p. 9-13 of the Draft EIR, a Senior Seismic Hazard Analysis Committee (SSHAC)
Level 3 study must also be undertaken at the sites. Such an assessment may raise the PGA
value, in which case Duynefontein’s PGA is at risk of being raised above the 0.3 g for which a
standard nuclear power station is designed. This risk is remote for Thyspunt, as its PGA value
is almost half of 0.3 g.”
This paragraph highlights the fact that the (outdated) Seismic Study found that the PGA for Koeberg is
on the threshold of 0.3g. Whereas the risk of the actual value exceeding this threshold is remote for
Thyspunt, it is a very real risk for the Koeberg site.
Given the unavailability of an updated seismic study for Koeberg, it is not possible to tell if this study
found a higher PGA value. As stated by the EAP, any deviations from a standard nuclear power
station design will result in “potentially significant cost and time delays to the project”. Without
knowing the updated PGA value, it is not possible to quantify such “significant” costs and delays, and

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hence not possible to fully assess the impact of the project.
Before an authorisation can be issued for the Koeberg site, the latest seismic study and PGA value for
Koeberg must be included in the EIR, be taken into account in the relevant specialist studies and the
public must be given sufficient time to analyse and comment on this updated EIR.

3.4. Seismic Study not Complete

A seismic study was included in the scoping phase, and hence was clearly considered relevant. The
Department (Environment and Tourism at the time) wrote on 19/11/2008 ”The Seismology specialist
must analyse and summarise available data gathered by existing seismic monitoring equipment into
account” further confirming the necessity of a seismic study.

3.4.1. Outdated Seismic Methodology

A seismic study (Appendix E4) was completed in 2009, and then modified for round 2 in 2010. It was
dated March 2011 (day of month not specified). This is the same version submitted in the final EIR
(round 4). Note that the Fukushima nuclear disaster, which resulted in a radical revision of seismic
risks to nuclear plants, occurred on 11 March 2011. It is clearly impossible that lessons learned from
Fukushima were taken into account in this specialist study. No reference to the Fukushima disaster, or
even to Japan, is made in this study. What is more, this study draws heavily from a report by Dames
and Moores done in 1976, which would be over half a century out of date in 2028, which is the date
until which this environmental authorisation is valid.
In their response to our first submission, the EAP or specialist wrote in a document (please find
attached) dated 20 March 2011 and titled Nuclear-1 EIA_IRR 45t_Long Submission_Koeberg
Alert Alliance_Final.pdf: “...engineering-based mitigation measures exist, since this can be inferred
from experience in the seismic hazard assessment and seismic design of other nuclear reactor sites in
regions characterised by levels of seismicity, and thus expected levels of seismic hazard, comparable
to or higher than those encountered in South Africa, such as California and Japan.”
This would be funny if it were not such a serious subject. By holding up Japan as a positive example
of how safe nuclear plants are w.r.t. seismic hazards, the EAP has highlighted their own failing in not
including lessons from Fukushima in this study.
In the same document, the EAP/specialist wrote “these reports are based on the seismic hazard
analysis done prior to 2004.” By the time construction could start, it would mean the seismic study
would be at least 15 years old. Given the very significant possible impact of a seismic event, basing a
decision on such an old study is not consistent with the precautionary principle, especially in light of
the subsequent changes to accepted best practices in this field and that the site is so close to a densely
populated urban centre as well as the tourism hub of South Africa.

3.4.2. Possible Seismic Effects of Climate Change Ignored

As an example of more recent research which has not been referenced in the EIR, there are published,
peer reviewed papers indicating that climate change may have an effect on seismic risk in South
Africa. A few examples follow.

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Increasing temperature and seismic activity
In a paper titled Impact of Global Warming on The Probable Earthquake in The Bengal Basin area
with respect to The Global Scenario, Dr Kar M.Sc. (Geo.),M.Sc. (Eco. and Env.) Env. Mng and
ISO14000/14001, Ph.D. (Sc. Cal) wrote in 2013:
Presently increasing temperature of the atmosphere and Global Warming also are increasing
seismicity and probability of earthquake.

Geosphere responds to climate change

B McGuire wrote in a paper published by The Royal Society in 2010:
Periods of exceptional climate change in Earth history are associated with a dynamic response
from the geosphere, involving enhanced levels of potentially hazardous geological and
geomorphological activity.

Seismic activity in Antarctica

Hampel, Hetzel and Maniatis wrote a paper in 2010 titled Response of faults to climate-driven
changes in ice and water volumes on Earth’s surface:

Our results ... have important consequences ... for the evaluation of the future seismicity in
regions currently affected by deglaciation like Greenland and Antarctica
Seismic activity in Antarctica is a particular risk to the southern coastal regions of South Africa, since
for example an earthquake or tremor there could trigger a tsunami caused by large sections of the ice
sheet breaking off.

Accessible presentation of these risks

Oxford University press published a book in 2013 titled Waking the Giant: How a changing climate
triggers earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes which draws on many research papers and presents the
information in a way which is accessible to a non-expert.

EAP ignores this research

Despite the large body of academic work on this topic, the EAP have simply ignored this risk factor
with regard to seismic hazards. Since a nuclear plant is expected to operate for 80 years, and then to
possibly contain dangerous radioactive material for decades or even much longer thereafter, the
possible impact of global climate change over such a long period simply cannot be ignored.

3.4.3. Admitted to be Inadequate

The specialists themselves have , in response to our criticisms, acknowledged that the report is
inadequate. In their response to our first submission, the EAP or specialist wrote in a document
(please find attached) dated 20 March 2011 and titled Nuclear-1 EIA_IRR 45t_Long
Submission_Koeberg Alert Alliance_Final.pdf: “The current report clearly states that the SHA
work has not yet been finalized, since a change in regulations requires a new investigation to be
undertaken, following an entirely new approach.”

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“The report is also quite clear about the fact that the methodology employed no longer conforms to
international best practice due to a change in the regulatory environment that occurred after the work
had been completed.”
If the report no longer conformed to best practice in 2011, it was clearly even further removed from
best practice by 2017. The EIR cannot be considered as complete with the seismic study in its current
form. As detailed elsewhere in this document, it appears there is an updated report in the hands of the
applicant and the NNR, but it is being withheld from us despite repeated explicit requests.
Other reports depend on the Seismic Assessment, such as in the Oceanographic report which states:
“There is the potential for water levels to exceed the proposed elevation (+10 m MSL) of the NPS at
all three sites should a tsunami coincide with extreme meteorological conditions (a meteo-tsunami
event). However, the occurrence of a tsunami is improbable, given the low risk of seismic activity in
the surrounding ocean.” With only an incomplete and inadequate Seismic Assessment to depend on,
the conclusions drawn by the Oceanographic Assessment are clearly invalid.

3.4.4. Blatantly Unscientific and Misleading

The recommendations of the CGS report and the peer review that the site is suitable for the
construction of a nuclear power plant while at the same time acknowledging that this recommendation
is based on incomplete and outdated data and methodologies, and that these recommendations might
change once latest best practice methods are used to assess the seismic risk represent nothing short of
a subversion of the scientific method and the precautionary principle.
This appears to be an attempt to offer apparently scientific support for a predetermined conclusion in
the absence of the data necessary to make such a judgement. The correct approach must be to collect
and analyse all of the data required to assess the seismic risk according to the most up-to-date methods
before a decision regarding the suitability of a particular site is made.

3.4.5. Bias on Part of EAP and Specialists

The first version of this specialist study (round 1) included the paragraph: “The environmental impact
assessment is based on the current state of knowledge without making provision for results of the
regulatory required detailed investigations for siting. The findings presented here still needs to be
confirmed by a more rigorous PSHA and may increase or decrease these values.”
This was replaced in the final report with “The EIA is based on the current state of knowledge
obtained through extensive geo-scientific investigations and studies spanning several decades.”
This appears to a be a clear attempt to downplay the inadequacy of the study, which is out of date, and
reflects poorly on the specialist in trying to pass off an inadequate study as complete. This is one of
many indications that the EAP has influenced the wording of the studies to be adjusted in order to
favour the applicant.

3.4.6. Transferring Obligation to the Applicant

In the same document, Nuclear-1 EIA_IRR 45t_Long Submission_Koeberg Alert
Alliance_Final.pdf, the EAP wrote: “The requirement Eskom puts upon itself to undertake a new

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PSHA, following an approach corresponding to the latest international best practice, should
therefore be seen as a proactive step in ensuring conformance with this best practice.”
It is unacceptable, and inconsistent with the legislation for an EAP to transfer a portion of the EIA
work onto the applicant. This should be clear without any further explanation. It is even less
acceptable that this updated study is being withheld from the public and the Department until after the
Department is expected to make an 'informed' decision. (We discuss elsewhere how this updated study
must be part of the Site Safety Report already submitted to the NNR by the applicant).
However, we point out the peer review and public participation processes of the EIA are stringent, and
it is unclear what regulations will apply for these process with regard to a study done by the applicant
themselves. There is certainly no guarantee that the applicant will subject a report they do themselves
to the same stringent process, and there is clearly no advantage for them to do so.
This level of cosy cooperation between the EAP and the applicant has the effect of depriving South
Africans of their right to participate meaningfully in this process, and is another indication of bias on
the part of the EAP.
There is a clear conflict of interest in failing to properly complete the EIR and then relying on a party
with a clear vested interest in the outcome to complete the outstanding work, notwithstanding that this
would be illegal according to the regulations, such as 13.(1)(d), 13.(f)(ii).

3.4.7. Delays Due to Financial Constraints

In the same document referred to above, the EAP/specialist wrote “a completely new PSHA, following
a different methodology, was required. In 2008 preparations were made for a PSHA, following the
SSHAC Level 3 methodology, which was to start for each of the three sites in 2009. Unfortunately the
new PSHAs had to be postponed because of financial constraints.”
“... a new PSHA will be undertaken for all three sites, following a SSHAC Level 3 process. Such a
PSHA was to start in 2009 and preparations for this work were already made in 2008, but
unfortunately it had to be postponed due to financial constraints. The SSHAC Level 3 PSHA should
take two to three years to complete and will utilise a multi-disciplinary and multi-national team of
scientists. Specialists within the project team will interact with various national and international
experts at project workshops, to ensure that the information included in the PSHA encompasses the
centre, body and range of the views and interpretations of the informed technical community.”
As of March 2018, this report has still not been made available to us, despite repeated requests.
Financial constraints of the applicant are far from adequate grounds for failing to complete the process
of updating an inadequate study. If the Department accepts this, it sets a dangerous precedent, where
any applicant can defer doing a study, which is in the scope, until after an authorisation is granted
merely because they do not wish to pay for it, or cannot afford it. We also believe this would be in
clear contravention of the regulations.
This new study must be completed, and be subject to public participation, before an authorisation can
be considered.

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3.4.8. Department also Queries Availability of Updated Seismic Study
In a letter dated 25/01/2013 signed by Mr Mark Gordon, the Department wrote “The results of the
seismic studies suggest that the three sites vary in peak ground acceleration values and that further
investigations are required. Please clarify when these SHA studies will be available, whether an
aseismic raft is being proposed...”. Despite this request, the updated study has not been made
available in the final EIR.

3.4.9. Last Minute Change by Peer Reviewer

In the final EIR, peer reviews for each specialist study are included. For some reason not explained,
there are two copies of the peer review of the seismic study, one dated 23 September 2015 and a later
one dated 11 February 2016.
The only difference we could find between these two versions is shown here, with an addition
highlighted.

The later version has the phrase added “during the NNR Nuclear Licensing Process”.
The peer reviewer appears to not be an expert on the EIA regulations, nor on the interplay between the
NNR and the Department of Environmental affairs. This raises the suspicion that the peer reviewer
was prompted to add this phrase in order to downplay the fact that the promised updated study had not
materialised.
It is not up to this reviewer, nor is it within their field of expertise, to pronounce on what should or
should not be part of the EIR.
This review must be rejected as inadequate as a qualified reviewer would have pointed out that any
nuclear site related seismic report that failed to include lessons from Fukushima was unacceptably
inadequate.
While assuming that he is an authority on seismic geology and nuclear installation siting, we were not
able to locate the CV of this peer reviewer, a Dr Mulemwa Akombelwa, within the EIR documents.
Had it been included we would have been able to comment on whether or not he is suitability

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qualified to write this review.
This last-minute alteration of a peer review to include a stipulation outside the field of expertise of the
reviewer is also another indication of pressure from the EAP to produce an EIR favourable to the
applicant.

3.4.10. Refusal by the NNR and Applicant to Provide SSR

The NNR have stated in emails that they have received a Site Safety Report (SSR) for the Koeberg
site as part of the Nuclear Site Licence application, as below. We believe this SSR contains the long
awaited updated Seismic Hazard study for the Koeberg site.
Gino Moonsamy <gmoonsamy@nnr.co.za> 11/13/17 to me

Yes it is part of the application received

From: Koeberg Alert [mailto:peter@koebergalert.org]

Sent: 13 November 2017 03:14 PM

To: Gino Moonsamy

Subject: Re: Nuclear site licence

Thanks Gino. But I don't understand - has the NNR received a site safety
report, or not?
–
Kind regards,
Peter Becker

We submitted a PAIA application to the NNR for this SSR, which was refused on 15 November 2017:
“Upon consideration of your request I wish to inform that your request has been denied due to
mandatory protection of third party information in accordance with Chapter 4 of the NNR
PAIA manual.
You are advised to request this information directly from Eskom.”
An internal appeal against this decision was also rejected by the NNR. Our legal advice indicates that
this is not a valid reason for refusal. In addition, the response tacitly admits the existence of the
requested document. What is more, during the public participation process for the Nuclear Site
Licence, the Seismic Study in the SSR will have to be made available to the public, so there is no
valid argument that it is secret third-party information which must be protected. This has been
admitted to us via email by Loyiso Tyabashe of Eskom:
Looking at this request, it looks like it will be possible to share the
information as it will ultimately become public once the NNR has reviewed
and accepted it

We have emailed officials, including Dave Nicholls, at Eskom several times with the same request, but
by time of writing this, we had not received any useful response apart from the suggestion that we try
doing another PAIA application plus an indication that the report is in 'draft' form, and so would not be
released anyway. We have not had the time or funds as yet to apply to the courts to force this report to
be made available to us.

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From the presence of the Seismic study in the EIR, as well as the voluminous communications
between the EAP and ourselves about this report, it is clear that a Seismic study is considered by all
parties to be relevant to this EIR.
However, since it is not part of the EIR documents, and the NNR and the applicant are refusing to
provide a copy, it is not possible for us to respond to this updated Seismic study. This means we are
not able to respond as fully as we would like to this issue.
It seems unreasonable that this report is in the possession of both the applicant and a government body
(the NNR), but the public are being denied access to it.
In order to ensure that our participation in this appeal is informed and meaningful, this SSR, or least
the updated Seismic Hazard study component of the SSR, must be made available to us, and a
reasonable period must be allowed for us to analyse and respond to this report before a final decision
is taken with regard to site.

3.5. Missing Documents and Conflict of Interest

3.5.1. No Peer Review of the Final Version of Geohydrology Report
The date of the final Geohydrology report is more recent than the date of the peer review. The review
includes several criticisms of the Geohydrology specialist report, sufficiently so that the original
authors of the report have been given an opportunity to defend their work and include a series of
rebuttals of the flaws identified by the reviewers as an appendix of the peer review. They have
subsequently produced an updated version of the specialist report. However there is nothing in the
EIA that indicates whether the reviewers were satisfied by these arguments. The review must be
updated to be redone on the latest version of the report.

3.5.2. Conflict of Interest in Geohydrology and Other Reports by SRK

The declaration by SRK that they have nothing to gain from the nuclear project is untrue. If a new
nuclear power station were to be built in South Africa they would be front runners to get a contract
and benefit financially from the project for several decades. At both Koeberg and the existing nuclear
waste site SRK run multiple ongoing projects of drilling boreholes and monitoring the groundwater
for radioactive contamination. Their geohydrology assessment calls for a programme of groundwater
monitoring throughout the lifetime of proposed new power station, a contract that they would expect
to win as they have few if any competitors in the business of radiation monitoring of groundwater in
South Africa. There is therefore an apparent conflict of interest in that SRK stand to gain significant
business if the project goes ahead.

3.5.3. Missing Peer Review of Waste Assessment

We have been unable to locate a peer review of the Waste Assessment report. We believe this report
fails to assess the potential impact of high level nuclear waste and failing to provide a peer review is a
fatal flaw in the EIR.

Page 13
3.6. Misrepresentation of Specialist Reports
The authorisation issued by the Department accepts the EAP claim that all specialist reports to be “of
high standard and satisfy the requirements”. However, many peer reviews paint a different picture of
the standard of the specialist reports. We give some examples below.

3.6.1. Oceanographic Assessment

The reviewer wrote: “I was given copies of the document in the title above (65 pages) but with the
Appendices B‐F as blank pages. After requesting Appendix B (the figures of the report), I received a
further three files ..., but not Appendix B.”
This means Prof Shillington reviewed the report without being given the complete report, which
implies that the review may be incomplete.
The reviewer also wrote: “...the author has relied on the (4th Assessment Reports) of the IPCC AR4
(2007) results. This is because his report predated the most current 5th Assessment Reports; IPPC
AR5 (2013).” This means that this assessment relies on a paper more than a decade old, despite the
existence of more recent research, which is inexcusable.
In an appendix to this report titled FEIR APP E16 App D Duynefontein Modelling Appendices.pdf,
a printout from a modelling run is included. This contains a section as follows:
Maximum Regional Magnitude Mmax is calculated

according to procedure by Kijko-Sellevoll-Bayes

Attempt to assess Mmax by chosen procedure was UNSUCCESFUL

This appears to be saying that the modelling attempt was unsuccessful, and we have not found an
adequate explanation of why this failure is not problematic.

3.6.2. Social Assessment

A table on page 3 of this review (electronic page 5 of the PDF) reads: “This is problematic. The report
is outdated and should be updated with the 2011 census data and relevant municipal documents and
projections. It is not acceptable to use outdated data if more recent data is available”.
On page 4 (electronic page 6 of the PDF) it reads “however, the statistical data and a number of the
documents used are outdated, some by more than a decade. This affects the technical, scientific and
professional credibility of the report.”
On the same page the peer review concludes “The report as is, is outdated and it would be a risk to
the project to put it as is in the public domain.”

3.6.3. Economic Assessment

The peer review of this report states “Of some concern is the fact that some of the data employed in
the study date back to 2007 or earlier. The world has changed since that time ...”. As discussed
elsewhere in this document, the age of the assessments, data, research and methodology are a theme

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that runs through much of this EIR.

3.6.4. Heritage Impact Assessment

The peer review for this report states: “it is evident that the recommendations for the study areas are
in some cases unclear and arbitrary”.

3.6.5. Tourism Impact Assessment

The peer review for this report states: “The possible impact of natural disasters causing damage to
such a facility should not be underestimated and swept under the carpet based on the sole premise
that South Africa will for-ever be spared form such phenomena.” This echoes our own concerns that
throughout the EIR the potential impact of such damage is dismissed as having been “practically
eliminated”, and hence there is no need to assess the economic and social impacts of such an event.
This assessment cannot be considered 'adequate' unless it quantified the possible economic impact of
damage to plant, for e.g. the potential consequences of closing Robben Island, which is within the
20km evacuation zone found to be necessary at Fukushima.

3.6.6. Seismic Hazard Assessment

We have dealt with this elsewhere in theis document. In summary, the peer review rates 8 of 17 key
factors at 2 out of 3, which means the issue was “partially addressed” or that information is missing.

3.7. Insufficient Public Participation Meetings in Cape Town

3.7.1. Refusal to Hold Public Meeting in Southern Suburbs
Initially three alternative sites were considered in the EIR. During revisions, Bantamsklip was
removed, leaving the Thyspunt site and Duynefontein/Koeberg. While the EAP consistently found
that Thyspunt was the preferred site, KAA has long believed that the Koeberg site would be selected
for cost savings reasons.
During the public participation process after the first draft of the EIR, three public meetings were
arranged in the Cape Town area: in Newlands on 19 April, in Duynefontein on 20 April, and in
Atlantis on 21 April 2010. For the first revised draft (round two) , there was only one in the Western
Cape in Melkbosstrand on 25 May 2011. This latter venue is inconvenient to many who could be
affected by the proposed plant, as well as by the transport of nuclear fuel from Cape Town harbour to
the site. It is north of Milnerton, in an upmarket golf estate some distance north of the city and many
residential areas, is subject to heavy rush hour traffic and was not on any public transport route at the
time.
When the final draft was complete, the EAP again arranged public participation meetings, but this
time refused to arrange one in Kenilworth or anywhere apart from north of Milnerton, at 6pm. This
meant that in order to participate, members of the public would have to drive a significant distance
through rush hour traffic, in some cases making it impossible to arrive at this venue by 6pm after
leaving work. Those without cars or unable to afford a private taxi had no option of attending.

Page 15
This created an unnecessary barrier to meaningful public participation, which the EAP justified by
saying that since Thyspunt was the preferred site, that people in Cape Town are less affected than
after the first draft, hence one meeting instead of three was appropriate.
It is also noted that the southern suburbs public participation meetings, particularly those at the
Vineyard hotel and in Kenilworth were the best attended meetings in the Western Cape, and where
vigorous opposition to the project was voiced.
Ms Ball, the lead EAP, wrote in an undated letter (see attached) to us with ref No: J27035 that “... the
Duynefontein site is not recommended as the preferred site. It is therefore considered that one Public
Open House and one Public Meeting are sufficient allow Interested and Affected Parties (I&APs)
reasonable opportunity ...”.
This letter was not included in the documents submitted with the final EIR, although it was
mentioned, and inaccurately quoted, in the document Nuclear-1 IRRs 1-50 Combined.pdf: “The
Duynefontein and Bantamsklip sites are not recommended as the preferred site.” It would have been
the simplest to copy and paste from the letter into the IRR document, but instead the EAP chose to
edit it slightly. Inserting the phrase “and Batamsklip” can be seen as a further attempt to deflect
attention away from the Duynefontein site.
At the time this reasoning (to limit the Western Cape meetings) was questionable, and in light of the
authorisation being given for Duynefontein, in retrospect was entirely invalid. It gave organisations
and members of the public in Cape Town the impression that there was no further need to engage with
the process, and that if it went ahead, it would be in Thyspunt. The EAP in effect pre-empted the
decision of the Department.
We pointed this out on page 34 of our third submission (in response to the second revised EIR draft).
We therefore submit that the public participation process was inadequate as it failed to provide people
of Cape Town with sufficient opportunity to comment. The EAP further misled the people of Cape
Town by leading them to suppose that as the project was not going to be built near Cape Town, they
would not be affected. Aside from this erroneous view regarding how nuclear plants affect the entire
country, the EAP appears to have deliberately misled the public, as they must be aware they are not
entitled to pre-empt the decision maker with regard to a final decision re site selection.

3.7.2. No Access to Public Meetings for Residents in Khayelitsha

In interactions with communities in Khayelitsha we encountered people who had strong views they
wished to express, but had not been provided with a channel to do so by the EAP. There were no
public meetings in their area, and no transport was offered to any of the public meetings. Some of
these people are uncomfortable with the formality of written submissions or appeals, and so feel
excluded from this decision making process.
Any attempt to argue that these communities are too far away to be affected would be invalid, as
listening to them would reveal. For example, one concern was what would happen to the mainly male
migrant labour who filled the 3 500 temporary construction jobs mentioned in the EIR, once the
construction period was over. Would they all return to where they came from, or would some remain,

Page 16
without jobs, in the Western Cape, and therefore strain availability of already scare resources such as
housing and water?
These questions should have been put directly to the EAP, who should have provided answers directly
to these communities. As far as this community is concerned, they have been denied meaningful
informed participation in this EIA process due to BEING economic disadvantaged.

3.8. Refusal of EAP to Incorporate Pertinent Data

In chapter 4, Need and Desirability, a graph is prominently displayed on page 3. This shows the
projected need for peak demand rising over the years, including a high and low prediction. This graph
clearly shows an urgent need to develop at least an additional 20 000MW generating capacity by
2030. Hence it is strongly supportive of the applicants claim that there is urgent need for this project.
This indicates a bias on the part of the EAP towards the applicant, as we describe below.

The problem with this graph is that it is wrong, and there are now seven years of actual peak demand
data which could be used to verify which of the scenarios are accurate. As it turns out none of them
are even close to accurate. They are all far too high, and even the projected demand for 2010, the very
start of the projection, is too high when compared to actual data.
This can be seen when the actual confirmed data, readily available from NERSA, is plotted on the
same scale, as is done below.
This shows that, even in the unlikely event that the projected demand growth suddenly materialises
now, the peak demand by 2030 will be between 45 000MW and 58 000MW. Obviously this would
not support the applicants desire to paint a picture that there is a need for this project.

Page 17
We pointed this out to the EAP, and provided them with a graph showing the real data, We even
published an article explaining this in detail [https://koebergalert.org/2015/12/24/eskom-and-gibb-
living-in-la-la-land/]. However, the EAP refused to incorporate actual data on the graph, despite
having easy direct access to such data from the applicant themselves.

http://www.nersa.org.za/Admin/Document/Editor/file/News%20and
%20Publications/Publications/Current%20Issues/NERSA%20Report%20No11.pdf
Using the last known actual data point, plus the wildly optimistic growth predicted by the IRP 2010,
even the IRP maximum demand in 2030 would be at about 58 000MW, which is 16 000MW less than
the original graph predicts. This is significantly more than the 9 600MW of nuclear they claimed
would be necessary, which means that by using actual data plus their own growth predictions, the 9
600MW of nuclear is definitely not needed.
The EAP used the convoluted excuse that such data, despite being readily available, did not form part
of the IRP 2010 report, and hence could not be used. This seems to be based on the patently false
assumption that the IRP is the only source of demand data. These logical contortions are simply
nonsensical. The data is readily available, from the applicant and also from official NERSA reports,
and should have been presented in the EIR.
The EAPs have failed in their duty to provide all pertinent information to the decision makers, again
suggesting a bias in favour of the applicant.
Giving such prominence to a graph from the IRP2010 which has been accepted as being out of date

Page 18
can only be construed as an attempt to mislead the decision maker. This EIR must therefore be
rejected and the EAP cautioned or disciplined.

3.9. Change Logs

There were four versions of the EIR, and with each new version some changes were made to the main
report, the summaries, and the specialist studies. In order to be able to engage meaningfully with the
changes so that we could establish if our concerns had been adequately dealt with, we requested that
the EAP provide us with a change log, showing all the edits that were made.
Since the specialists report alone are about 1 380 000 words (over 1.3 million) in each of the 4
versions of the EIR, it was not practical for us to read through each report to see what had been
changed. In some cases, as with the peer review for the seismic studies, by manually comparing the
files we found some worrying things which we comment on below. There may well have been other
changes which we would have wanted to comment on, but that we were not able to find. A change log
is a common practice when releasing versions of a complex document, and the EAP's refusal to do
this for the specialist reports, despite several requests, has hindered our ability to engage meaningfully
with the 4 versions of the EIR that have been released.
We note that the Department explicitly instructed the EAP, in a letter dated 27/08/2017 from Mr
Sabelo Malaza: “Furthermore, the report must indicate the changes which were made between the
draft EIR – Version 1 and Version 2”. The phrase “the report” must be taken to mean the entire EIR
report, and this includes the specialist studies.
We note in other sections where minor changes have been picked up by us, such is the the seismic
study, these changes form the basis of what we consider to be valid grounds for appeal. We do not
know how many other such suspect tweaks we would have picked up if the EAP had complied with
our request and that of the Department.
The EAP has therefore failed to fulfil their legal obligation to assist the public to participate
meaningfully.

4. Specific Problems with Technical Content

The scientific reports are long and detailed and many of them are very thorough and have been
completed to a high standard. Some of them are excellent. However the most important studies are
incomplete and scientifically flawed.

4.1. Seismic Risk Analysis

In our previous submission (please find attached) we raised many concerns and raised detailed
questions about the methodology and conclusions. We have yet to receive satisfactory replies to many
of these. Some of these are highlighted below.

4.1.1. Forty Year Old Study Used

The specialist study for seismic risk uses the figure of 0.3g for the PGA (peak ground acceleration)

Page 19
from a study done in 1976 by Dames and Moore. To use this as a basic for a decision 40 years later is
questionable, given the advances in the field and internally accepted best practices since then. Since
this authorisation is valid for ten years, construction could start in 2028. That would mean a study
which by then is half a century old would be used as a basis for the seismic risk analysis. Given the
rapid changes in technology and new post Fukushima understandings of seismic risks to nuclear
plants, this is unacceptable.
This is confirmed by the peer review of first draft where it states: “Since then, significant
developments have occurred which would have impacted on the report. For example, the Fukushima
earthquake and resulting tsunami would have drawn the authors’ attention to a local risk associated
with the proposed Nuclear Power Station sites. ...we draw attention to areas where further
investigations are suggested in the light of more recent developments.”
GIBB wrote “a new PSHA will be undertaken for all three sites, following a SSHAC Level 3 process.
Such a PSHA was to start in 2009 and preparations for this work were already made in 2008, but
unfortunately it had to be postponed due to financial constraints.” Financial constraints are not valid
grounds for failing to redo an inadequate study.

4.1.2. Missing Information which will Impact Costs

In the executive summary of the specialist reports it states: “However, additional neotectonic studies
still need to be completed and the results submitted to the National Nuclear Regulator as part of the
Site Safety Report submissions. These studies, which will be done separately from the EIA process,
may impact and even change conclusions reached to date, and therefore no final conclusions can be
made about site suitability.”
And in chapter 10 Annexure “There is no physical upper limit for the seismic design of a nuclear
power stations, but increasing the specification to seismic criteria above 0.3 g increases both cost and
time required for design of the power station .”
“1 The KNPS aseismic bearings are understood to have added 10% to the civil construction cost of
the plant and the extra design and analysis required for such a system could increase the overall
project schedule by some 24-36 months (pers. comm. Dave Nicholls, Nuclear Engineer Eskom).”
“Further studies have been identified and are being performed, in order to permit adequate
engineering solutions to geologic and seismic effects at the sites.”
Note also that according to Dave Nicholls of Eskom, a new study could increase construction costs of
the aseismic bearings, and also extend the construction phase by three years. Since capital costs form
the most significant cost of a nuclear plant, certainty about these factors are crucial to take into
account when evaluating the affordability of the project with respect to sustainable development, as
required by section 2 of NEMA. Therefore an authorisation cannot be issued until such a study is
complete, and the resulting costs are factored in. This data must form part of the EIR, and has been
omitted in the final version submitted to the decision maker.

Page 20
4.1.3. Academic Criticism of Seismic Study
The final peer review has a table in which it rates the seismic study on 17 points. 8 of the 17 are rated
at 2 out of 3, which means the issue was “partially addressed” or that information is missing. If nearly
half the issues are “partially addressed” according to the peer review, this report cannot be considered
complete, and is therefore inadequate.

4.1.4. Insufficient Data to Make a Site Selection

Perhaps the most significant statement in the peer review is contained in the following passage: “More
detailed surveys need to be carried out in these areas, because this additional information could alter
the final conclusions reached in the report regarding the choice of site”, acknowledging that a new
PSHA may invalidate the current findings. This is particularly significant because the EAP and the
department had a difference of opinion as to whether Thyspunt or Duynefontein was the better site.
Once the more detailed surveys recommended by the peer review are done, this may well influence
the choice of site. It is therefore inappropriate and irrational for the decision maker to select a site,
without the extra data which the specialists have stated is necessary to inform such a decision.
The final peer review states on page 3 “It is recommended that the above recommendations together
with those made by the CGS (2011) should be pursued to substantiate the suitability of the proposed
sites for the erection of Nuclear Power Stations.” This recommendation by a specialist hired by the
EAP has been ignored by the EAP.

4.1.5. Insufficiently Qualified Peer Reviewer

A search for the reviewer reveals very little expertise in this field, and no relevant publications.
[http://landsurveying.ukzn.ac.za/School_Leadership_and_Staff/MulemwaAkombelwa.aspx] He also
appears to have no expertise in regulations and NNR vs EIA processes, and works at a Land
Surveying department. Given his apparent lack of relevant qualifications, Dr Akombelwa’s suitability
as the author of the peer review is questionable, as is the fact that his CV does not appear to be present
among the EIR documents. He is an engineer who appears to have little experience in geophysics
generally and in seismic risk analysis in particular.
This report must be reviewed by a suitably qualified and experienced academic, before the EIR can be
considered to be complete.

4.1.6. Bias of EAP in Judging Seismic Study to be Adequate

If a specialist study was judged to be necessary as part of the EIA, it seems that any problems found
with the methodology of that study should be corrected before the EIR is finalised. By submitting the
final EIR with an inadequate seismic study, and claiming that it will be fixed later, long after the
public participation process as required by NEMA is over, and the Authorisation has been granted, is
in effect diluting the EIA process.
Despite all this, the EAP declared the Seismic study, together with all the other specialist reports, to be
'adequate'.

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4.1.7. No Impact Assessment Done for Possible Earthquake Induced
Catastrophic Accident
The NNR process considers safety standards, but does not quantify or analyse environmental impact.
By deferring to the NNR process, the potential environmental, economic and social impacts of serious
damage due to an earthquake were simply not considered.
There is a very weak attempt to cover this is the BDSA report, which uses the approach that the
chance of such an event is 'practically eliminated' due to the design of the plant. As neither the design
or even the vendor of the plant is known at this stage, this statement can only be regarded as false, and
wishful thinking. This again suggests bias on the part of the EAP and/or specialist.

4.2. Flawed and biased Economic Report (Appendix E17)

4.2.1. Vendors not Members of EPRI
This report references the EPRI (2010) document Energy Power Research Institute (2010). Power
Generation Technology Data for Integrated Resource Plan of South Africa. Department of Energy,
South Africa and prepared by EPRI, 3420 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 9430. We note that not all
vendors of nuclear reactors are members of the the EPRI. Either this specialist study is
inappropriately pre-empting a fair tender process by eliminating certain vendors, or it is simply cherry
picking attractive figures which support the applicant even though they are not necessarily relevant,
which constitutes an attempt to deceive the decision maker.
For example Rosatom's VVER has been considered a frontrunner, and it is not a member of EPRI. In
addition, the EPRI (2010) report focusses on technology provided by Areva and Westinghouse (see
table 2 on page x of the Executive Summary of the above document), and does not mention Russia,
Rosatom, nor the VVER technology.

4.2.2. Updated EPRI (2015) Report Ignored

An updated EPRI report was released in August 2015, over two years before the final EIR was
submitted to the Department. Despite this, this updated EPRI report is ignored in the Economic
report, appendix E17. Over the past 8 years, the field of energy technology has progressed
dramatically, and significant lessons have been learned about nuclear plant costs, safety issues, and
cost and time overruns. It is inexcusable that a superceded report from 2010, now 8 years old, is used
as a basis to support the goal of the applicant.
The EAP has once again failed in their duty to provide the decision maker with the latest available
pertinent data.

4.2.3. Unsubstantiated and False Statements

On page 77 of this report, is states: “The technologies for renewable energy alternatives such as wind,
solar and wave, have not yet been developed to beyond the level of small-scale plants.” This is
unsubstantiated, and plainly false. For example, the Gansu wind farm in China currently has a
capacity of 7900MW, and is planned to grow to 20000MW. This information is readily available from

Page 22
a wide variety of sources.
Either the specialist compiling this report was ignorant of the above wind farm, or they were aware
but consider 7900MW to be “small-scale”, or they were aware and chose to hide this fact from the
decision maker. Whatever the reason, this calls into question the value of whatever else this author
has written in this report.
To remedy this, all references to matters outside the expertise of this specialist should be removed
from this report.

4.2.4. Refuelling Downtime Ignored

On page 77 this report comments on the capacity factor of nuclear, stating “whilst that of nuclear is
93% (EPRI 2010)”. As was published in Engineering news on 26th February 2018, one of the
Koeberg units was shut down towards the end of February for refuelling, and is expected to be out of
service until the end of May 2018. Refuelling is done every 18 months, and this means a nuclear
reactor, based on South Africa experience, is down for 3 months out of every 18, which means it can
have a maximum capacity factor of 83%. This of course wildly optimistic, since it assumes that
nothing ever goes wrong, and that no faulty part or earth tremor ever results in a reactor shutdown.
The applicant may respond that newer technologies have shorter refuelling down times, but this would
contradict a statement by Mr Mervin Theron of Eskom recorded on page 142 (and again on page 112)
of APP B4 Authority Correspondence RDEIR v1.pdf which states “... Eskom wants a system
similar to that at the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station. He went on to say this was because Eskom
have 27 years experience of managing the power station and want to use this knowledge to run
Nuclear-1.”
Since no design is specified, the actual refuelling downtime cannot be established, and hence stating
an arbitrary capacity factor of the plant is unsubstantiated and invalid.

4.2.5. Suspicion of Bias

The above figure of 93% capacity factor makes nuclear appear more attractive than it is in reality, and
the suspicion of bias of the part of this specialist is further fuelled when they go on to conclude
“therefore, it seems clear that nuclear is the cheaper and more appropriate option for the three sites
to produce enough power for a growing South African economy” (emphasised text as in original
report). This is in direct contradiction to the reports from the Energy Research Centre (ERC) of UCT
as well as the from the CSIR, cited elsewhere in this appeal. It seems unlikely that the the economist
who wrote this report is better informed than the teams of scientists at the CSIR and ERC, and
therefore likely that this specialist is wrong on this crucial point. This casts further doubt on the
validity of all other conclusions drawn by the same author in this specialist report.

4.3. Geohydrology Report

The EIR avoids one of the most obvious and import potential impacts of the NPS on the environment,
namely what would happen if there was to be a significant leak of radioactive material directly into
the groundwater at the site of the NPS. The nearby Atlantis aquifer which provides water to the city of

Page 23
Cape Town and is likely to become an even more important water source in the future is likely to be
affected. The study does not present how severe this effect would be, nor how long it would last, nor
how widespread it would be, nor how much leaked radioactive material would result in a significant
risk to the people of Cape Town. None of this has been studied in the EIR.
The Geohydrology specialist report only includes analyses of the normal operation of an undamaged
NPS. They ignore scenarios in which liquid radioactive effluent is leaked because this is not supposed
to happen in normal operation. Trace quantities of airborne radioactive emissions are included in the
study because under normal operation tiny quantities of Tritium would be released into the
environment but in such small amounts that it can be considered acceptable. The study must be
extended to include the unlikely but quite plausible scenario that damage arising from an earthquake,
tsunami, act of terrorism or other causes results in a significant release of radioactive matter into the
groundwater. This should be the most important part of the Geohydrology study, as the potential
impact is very large.
The Geohydrology report includes the conclusion (on page 4) that "Liquid radioactive emissions will
not affect existing groundwater users directly", but this statement is not based on any analysis or
model in the report at all. It also excludes indirect effects through a clever use of language. There are
diagrams (Fig 2.50) that are incorrectly labelled as showing "Nuclear contamination after 50 years"
but from the text of the report it is clear the only contamination that they were able to include in the
numerical model is non-radioactive.
This inconsistency between the conclusion and the labelling of the diagrams referring to radioactive
contaminants on the one hand and the detail in the text specifically excluding radioactive
contaminants on the other hand may be an error or it may be a deliberate attempt to obscure the fact
that their analysis is incomplete. If it is an error, it indicates incompetence on the part of the
specialist. If the latter, it is yet another indication of bias on the part of the EAP/specialist.
As mentioned earlier, we do believe that the specialists who performed the study are biased in favour
of the proposed development. Irrespective, it is certainly an undeniable fact that the analysis is
incomplete.
The method that they used for simulating contamination in the numerical model is a "mass flow
model" a very simplistic approach suitable for non-radioactive contaminants only. Modelling of
radioactive contaminants is vastly more complicated and well beyond the numerical modelling
competence of the authors of the report who have nothing more than undergraduate level
qualifications in applied mathematics or physics.
Radioactive contaminants can affect the rock through which they pass, rendering the rock radioactive,
which can have knock on effects not modelled by the methodology used in this assessment. The
appropriate type of analysis can readily be performed by suitably qualified experts, and for something
this important it should have been done. This study is therefore clearly inadequate, and needs to be
redone.

Page 24
4.4. Wikipedia is not a Valid Scientific Reference
We found that the following specialist studies reference Wikipedia as a source:

 APP E18 Social Impact Assessment

 APP E21 Agricultural Impact Assessment

 APP E29 Waste Assessment

 App E37 Peer Review Tourism Impact Assessment

Since Wikipedia, as any encyclopaedia, is a tertiary source it is entirely inappropriate as a source for a
scientific paper or report, as any science undergraduate is aware. It is unacceptable that a decision as
important as whether or not to proceed with nuclear is based in any way, however small, on
information obtained from Wikipedia.
While we are aware of the irony in quoting Wikipedia to justify this view, Wikipedia itself, on the
page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Academic_use, states that:
However, citation of Wikipedia in research papers may be considered unacceptable, because
Wikipedia is not a reliable source.[1][2][3]
This is especially true considering anyone can edit the information given at any time, and
although most errors are immediately fixed, some errors remain unnoticed, for weeks, months,
or even years. This is particularly the case for obscure topics or subjects, which few people
will read or edit.
This article quotes Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales on the subject:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/15/wikipedia_can_damage_your_grades/
"They say, 'Please help me. I got an F on my paper because I cited Wikipedia'" and the
information turned out to be wrong, he says. But he said he has no sympathy for their plight,
noting that he thinks to himself: "For God sake, you're in college; don't cite the encyclopedia,"
Any specialist study which cites Wikipedia should receive an 'F' grade, for Fatally flawed. These
studies need to be reviewed by sufficiently reputable academics who are aware of these basic citation
rules, and only reputable sources used.

4.5. Evacuation Zone of 800m

Throughout the EIR an evacuation zone of 800m is mentioned as a basis for the specialist studies.
The Authorisation should state that it is conditional on these evacuation zones being approved by the
NNR.

4.5.1. No Government has Approved an 800m Zone

Note that we have not managed to find any nuclear regulator which has approved an 800m evacuation
zone for an operational nuclear power reactor, and international best practice is to have an evacuation
zone of 16km. The Fukushima experience has shown that a 20km evacuation zone is in fact

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necessary, as such a zone is still in place around the Fukushima plant today.

4.5.2. The Department Shares our Concern

We note that this concern is shared by the Department, who wrote in a letter dated 25/01/2013 signed
by Mr Mark Gordon “this Department requires clarity as to why the exclusive zone of the proposed
nuclear power station is so much smaller than that of the existing Koeberg Nuclear Power Station”.
The honest answer to this is, in short, “wishful thinking”. Manufacturers of nuclear plants are aware
that the 16km evacuation zone results in resistance due to anxiety in the public and the complicating
of town planning when a site such as Koeberg is so close to a densely populated urban centre. To
address this, the nuclear industry proposed (before the Fukushima accident) that evacuation zones
could perhaps be decreased to 800m, which is generally within the plant boundary. This proposal has
not been accepted to our knowledge by any regulator in the world, and rightly so.

4.5.3. EAP Misleads the Department re 800m Zone

During an Authority Meeting on 7 June 2011, Mr Andries Struwig of the Department asked for
clarification of the emergency zoning. Mr Reuben Heydenrych, one of the EAPs at the time,
according to the minutes recorded in point 28 on page 110 of APP B4 Authority Correspondence
RDEIR v1.pdf explained the 800m zone as follows: “The nuclear utilities of all European countries
agreed universal safety criteria for all nuclear power stations on the continent.” This clearly gives
the impression that all European countries have implemented an 800m zone for “all nuclear power
stations”. This is blatantly untrue, and was said in the presence of the lead EAP, Ms Ball, who failed
to correct Mr Heydenrych.
In fact, the 800m zone is merely a proposal by the nuclear industry, with the explicit objective to
“Seek for improved acceptance” as documented by the International Atomic Energy Agency here:
https://www.iaea.org/nuclearenergy/nuclearknowledge/Events/2013/2013-10-28-11-01-
WS/presentation/3-4.Serviere-France-European-Utility-Requirements-for-LWR-nuclear-power-
plants.pdf.
None of the currently running reactors anywhere in Europe has an EPZ under 10km.
The proposals for new reactors in Europe indeed sometimes refer to 800m (Hinkley Point C, UK;
Paks II, Hungary; Astravetz, Belarus; it was also mentioned in the EIA for the first NPP in Poland),
but they all use a 3 km EPZ in their proposals. However, none of these proposed schemes have been
legally accepted.
The figure of 800m comes from what is basically advertising material from EdF/Framatome (formerly
Areva), Westinghouse and Rosatom that an EPZ of 800m is sufficient for Gen III+ reactors. All of
these have been challenged, however, and from an emergency preparedness and response view, it is
considered unlikely that even the 3 km zone will be accepted.
The simple reason relates not to reactor physics but to meteorology. After a severe accident, some time
is needed to run meteorological models with the data you receive from the plant before you can, with
some confidence, assess in which direction you have to evacuate people. During that time you need to
prevent contamination of people that could in principle be affected during that time, and 10km is

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considered to be a safe radius. Even a 3km radius could well be too little, especially with the large
radioactive inventories in GenIII+ reactors of 1000 MW and more.
In our opinion Mr Heydenrych could not have been so ignorant of the field as to have been unaware of
the above facts, and was intentionally misleading the Department in order to promote the objectives of
the applicant. For this intentional deception of the authorities, these EAP's should be held to account
for contravening the EIA regulations section 13 and the sanctions of section 14 should be applied, as
well as criminal charges.

4.6. High Level Radioactive Waste/Spent Fuel

High level waste has been stored on site at Koeberg since operation began in 1986. To date, over 1.2
million kilograms have accumulated from the 1800MW plant, and are stored in a combination of
cooling ponds and casks. Adding a new plant in the region of 4000MW would result in the production
of spent fuel waste at a rate of about 100 000kg per year. Since no high level waste repository has
been built, and no firm commitment has been made to build one by a certain date, this waste will need
to be stored on site for the foreseeable future. While every precaution will no doubt be taken, there is
the possibility that some combination of events could lead to a failure of the cooling ponds.

4.6.1. Potential Impact of Cooling Pond Failure not Assessed

Such a failure must form part of a complete impact assessment. Instead of doing this, the EAP has
written bland assurances such as “Spent fuel pools are designed to internationally accepted standards
to ensure safety of public, workers and environment...”. This is hypothetical, as no design has as yet
been selected.
Whether a certain outcome is unlikely, and especially when assurance that risk is “practically
eliminated” is given by the industry or a body which promotes the industry, the EAP may not accept
those assurances and refuse to study the potential impact of something going wrong with the storage
facility for high level waste.
This acceptance by the EAP that the applicant will, by selecting a design in the future, 'practically
eliminate' the risk, and therefore that the impact need not be assessed, is further indication of blind
faith in the applicant and bias on the part of the EAP.

4.6.2. Directive from Department not Followed

The Department wrote to the EAP during the scoping phase in 2008: “2.11 The long term storage of
high level nuclear waste must be addressed in the EIR”. Since the EIR deals with potential impacts,
this must be taken to mean that the potential impact of all aspects of waste handling must be
addressed. The EAP has failed to follow this directive.

4.6.3. Inaccurate Quantification of High Level Waste

In section 4.4.6 of FEIR APP E29 Waste Assessment.pdf the author, Dr Jacobus van Blerk, writes
“The Nuclear-1 Nuclear Power Station is expected to generate approximately 1,880 tons of spent fuel
over its 60-year operational lifetime (ESKOM, 2010).”

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It appears van Blerk is not aware of the difference between a nuclear plant and a nuclear reactor. The
source given is Nuclear-1 EIA - Appendix C - Consistent Data Set 10.08.20.pdf which contains:
Spent fuel per unit over lifecycle (Approx) ton 1 880
He has missed the fact that this is per unit, i.e. reactor, and that the Nuclear-1 Power Station is
envisaged to have two units. This means van Blerk has described half the amount of waste that would
actually be generated.
This is either shockingly uninformed or careless, and the misrepresentation of such a basic fact about
a crucial aspect of the project must be seen as a fatal flaw. One would assume any worthwhile peer
review would have picked this up, which brings us to the next point.

4.6.4. Missing Peer Review

We would have been interested to read a peer review of this specialist report, but we were not able to
locate one amongst the EIR documents.

4.7. Beyond Design Basis Accident Report

This specialist report was not part of the first two drafts of the EIR, but was added in round 3 at the
request of the Department.

4.7.1. Impact not Assessed

According to section 8.5 of the main report “As far as possible, the specialist had to quantify the suite
of potential environmental impacts identified in the study and assess the significance of the
impacts...”.
Given that that there is much data about the impact of the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents, it
would have been quite possible to do an assessment of the impacts of such a beyond design basis
accident.
However, in response to one of our submissions, the EAP wrote in Nuclear-1 RDEIR V2 IRR S030
(KAA)_v4_2016.02.21.pdf: “It is argued that this report was never intended to be an assessment as
such (that is the role of the NNR safety case review), simply an account of the key issues”
This report fails to assess the potential impact of a large scale accident, and however unlikely this is,
the potential environmental, economic, agricultural and social impacts must be put before the decision
maker. This is one of the more glaring fatal flaws in the EIR.

4.7.2. Circular Reasoning

In the BDBA specialist study, it states “is considered to have been practically eliminated if it is
physically impossible for the conditions to occur or if the conditions can be considered with a high
degree of confidence to be extremely unlikely to arise”. We found this phrase “practically eliminate”
23 times in the EIR, despite the fact that it is scientifically and mathematically undefined.
Analysing the above phrasing, the section “physically impossible” is clearly not relevant, as large

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scale accidents are possible, however unlikely they may be. So the phrase may as well read: “is
considered to have been practically eliminated if the conditions can be considered with a high degree
of confidence to be extremely unlikely to arise”. This begins to reveal the vapid inanity of this
statement.
Without affecting the meaning, it could be rewritten “practically eliminate means make extremely
unlikely”, which is just an attempt to give meaning to a phrase by defining it in terms of another
undefined phrase.

4.7.3. Probability of Large Scale Accident

As of 2011, there were approximately 14 000 years of cumulative reactor operation years worldwide.
Taking just the three well known large scale nuclear power disasters up to that date, that is
approximately one accident every 4500 reactor years. Given that the lifetime of this plant is projected
to be 80 years, and that there will be at least two reactors, that will represent 160 years of reactor
operation. Dividing 160 by 4500 gives a statistical probability of a major nuclear catastrophe during
the lifetime of this plant of 3.5%.
There are factors which mean this probability of 3.5% may not apply to a new plant built in South
Africa. It is based on historical international data, which includes older nuclear reactor designs, which
may mean this figure would decrease. On the other hand, the combination of Russian engineering and
Eskom's historical record of attention to detail when it comes to plant maintenance may increase this
figure.
Note that this is based on INES level 7 accidents only, which involve a “major release of radioactive
material”. If INES level 6 incidents were included, which involve a “significant release”, this
probability would increase significantly. The report in the EIR uses the terminology “Large
Radioactivity Release”, and it is not clear whether this relates to INES level 6 or 7. To be
conservative in our criticism, we assume it means INES 7 (refer to INES table on page 27 of this
report).
The report presents on pages 6 and 46 a table as follows:

Since Rosatom seems to be a favoured vendor, the figure for the AES-92 is used here. An estimated
figure of 1.8e-8, or 0.0000018% probability per reactor year is given for a large release of

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radioactivity. Multiplying by 160 reactor years makes this 0.00029%, over ten thousand times smaller
than a probability based on hard historical data.
The author of this study presents no defensible scientific, statistical or mathematical motivation why
they present a probability four orders of magnitude smaller than the historical data shows. They also
do not present confidence intervals of these estimates.
This faulty reasoning is then used elsewhere in the EIR to justify there being no need to assess the
actual potential impacts of such as event.
There is no doubt that new designs attempt to minimise the risks of a major accident. It seems
reasonable to assume this has always been a factor in the design of nuclear reactors. It is also clear
that it is impossible to entirely eliminate the possibility of a large scale accident, which is why this
report used the phrase 'practically eliminate' twelve times. Assuming that new designs are over 10 000
safer is somewhat optimistic.
This report is therefore fatally flawed in that it uses unsubstantiated probabilities of a large scale
accident. Given that it does not specify where these optimistic probabilities were sourced or how they
were derived, one can speculate that they were provided by the vendors of the technology. Accepting
this data without question or analysis of their derivation as at best naïve and alternatively indicates a
bias towards the applicant.
This report must be reviewed, the historical probabilities must be shown, a derivation of any other
probabilities shown must be presented, and uncertainty intervals for these estimates must be provided.
The potential impact of such an accident must also be assessed.

4.8. Scoring System with Examples

In order to simplify the rating of various impacts, the EAP formulated a simplified weighting and
scoring system. This was done in an unscientific manner, and ended up being so simplified as to
allow ludicrous conclusions, as we describe below.

4.8.1. Department Queries Scoring and Weighting System

Firstly, we note that the Department was uncomfortable with the scoring system used as early as 2010,
as expressed in the document APP B3 DEA letter dated 10.05.10.pdf.

4.8.2. Scoring System not Peer Reviewed

The department required the EAP to provide peer reviews for all the specialist studies. However, the
results from these peer reviewed studies were fed into an in-house custom developed scoring system,
which itself was never peer reviewed!
The results of the specialist studies have been summarised and presented to the decision maker
through this filter, which is unverified and of unknown scientific validity.
In the minutes of a meeting recorded in point 18 on page 108 of APP B4 Authority Correspondence
RDEIR v1.pdf, Ms J Ball, the lead EAP at the time, responded to Mr Struwig who was questioning
the scoring system methodology by saying “The weighting system was created by GIBB has been

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subject to a round of public comment as well as three different peer reviewers.” What Ms Ball omitted
was that the public comment process resulted in in-depth criticism of this scoring methodology. In
addition, we have not been able to locate a single peer review of this methodology in the EIR
documents.
Either these peer reviews have been omitted from the EIR, or Ms Ball was misleading the Department,
both of which constitute fatal flaws.

4.8.3. Unscientific Methodology in Ranking of Risk

FEIR Report Main Exec Sum (English).pdf spends several pages (28-34) describing the ranking of
consequences, likelihood categories, residual risk categories and categorising various consequences.
None of these are quantified, and they are totally subjective. This is despite the fact that many
validated, numerical scales exist to describe risk which could have been used by the EAP.
Elsewhere in the scientific literature the theoretical risks ascribed to nuclear power generation for each
“generation” of reactor type have also been described, and layered, onto those theoretical risks, as
have been the real risks per operational year based on the known major incidents in the age of nuclear
power generation. For example, see the 14 page special report in The Economist, March 10-16th
2010. This body of work could have been used by the EAP to provide an objective and scientific
scoring methodology, but it was not.
Instead the EAP classified risks using subjective terms such as “low”, “moderate” or “high” without
referencing what this grading system is based on. This is both simplistic and disingenuous and should
not be included in a document used to make a decision of such import to the country.

4.8.4. Invalid Post-hoc Scoring System

We were informed during a public meeting that Arcus-Gibb formulated an “in-house” classification
which they were unable to explain satisfactorily. From the EIR and the EAPs response to questions, it
is clear that this scoring system was established post-hoc, once they had most of the results of the
specialist studies at their disposal in 2009.
Scoring systems are widely used in other fields of expertise, and typically use a number of data
variables with specified ranges that are measurable, a weighting is applied to each variable and the
sum of the variables is used to give a severity score or a predictor score. The following cannot be
emphasised enough: a scoring system derived from a set of data will always hold true for that set
of data, and therefore needs to be validated using another set of data to determine its utility.
The scoring system used in the EIR is clearly attempting to perform a similar function, i.e. to make
sense of and create a measurable prediction of an outcome from a complex set of data. However the
scoring system in the EIR is not referenced and its development and validation is not adequately
explained. Given other indications of possible bias on the part of the EAP, this is a concern, as such a
subjective scoring system is open to manipulation, and can easily be adjusted to provide whichever
outcome is desired.
The EIA practitioners response to our concerns (c.f. Nuclear-1 RDEIR V2 IRR S034 (Anthony

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Reed)_v3_2016.02.21.pdf) was that every discipline has its “own” way of determining a scoring
system, but no evidence was provided to support the techniques used in the EIR for Nuclear-1. The
lack of evidence suggests that there is no rational method that the EAP used when scoring the various
factors for Nuclear-1.
In addition to the weighting workshop being held after the data was available (post-hoc), the EAP
team described further changes after the integration workshop. It is not clear what these are, and they
could have differed materially from the group of specialists, which in itself is methodologically
questionable.
This methodology would not pass on ethical, scientific or peer review methodology, and would not
stand up to a true peer review of the process. The lack of detail as to what was decided at the
integration workshop and what was decided (and changed) after that by the EAP team does not allow
anyone to interpret this process. This is crucial as the final recommendations are heavily reliant on
these weightings.

4.8.5. Various Environmental Factors Ignored in Value Driven Approach

A further concern is that EIA weighting scores of 1 were allocated to all of the following categories,
and then because they were weighted as 1, they were not considered when an attempt was made to
create a “value driven” assessment to compare the three sites: Geohydrology, Floral impact, Marine
ecology impact, Noise impact, Tourism impact, Agricultural impact, Social impact.
This cannot be considered to be an environmental assessment, if these clearly environmental factors
are completely discounted in the final site selection for a nuclear power station at environmentally rich
sites on stretches of undeveloped coastline.

4.8.6. Inadequate Response from EAP

A final concern is that in response to these concerns, that the EIA practitioners informed us in IRR
RDEIR IRR 70 (Reed)_2015.09.17.pdf that the “National Department of Environmental Affairs
requested the EAP to review the impact assessment methodology used in the Revised Draft
Environmental Impact Report (Version 1), so as to simplify the criteria for assessment of significance
and identification of a preferred site. In response, an approach has been developed that identifies and
describes key decision-making issues contained in the individual specialist studies. This updated
assessment no longer utilises the ranking / scoring system for the sites, but rather considers the
residual risks associated with the proposed Nuclear power station at the proposed sites.” This
confirms the concerns expressed above as well as by other interested and affected parties.

4.8.7. Hypothetical Example to Demonstrate Inadequacy

As we wrote in our submission to the EAP:
“Here is a hypothetical scenario to highlight the bias inherent in this scoring system:
GIBB finds that there is a 55% chance of a catastrophic nuclear explosion within the first year of
operation, which would render large areas of Cape Town uninhabitable for hundreds of years.

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Scoring result: According to the first table on page 26 of the Main Report, this would be classified as
'likely'. In terms of a residual risk, such an event would obviously be classified as 'High'. According
to the second and third tables, this combination of high residual risk, and 'likely' would result in a
final recommendation to the decision maker that “Project can go ahead but with strict conditions...”.
The EAP has not disputed that this application of their scoring system is correct. As a hypothetical
example it highlights the inadequacy of the scoring system, and how it allows a 'go ahead' conclusion
even if obviously unacceptable and catastrophic impacts were to be found likely, contrary to simple
common sense.
When common sense arrives at a different conclusion to the formal scoring system constructed by the
EAP, it is a clear indication that the scoring system is inadequte and favours the applicant.

4.8.8. Scoring system remedy required

To remedy the above concerns, the scoring and weighting system must be re-formulated in a scientific
way, clearly described, validated on a separate data set, and the methodology subjected to peer review.

4.9. Insufficient Attention to Alternatives

With reference to the applicable EIA regulations, section 32(2)(h):

4.9.1. No-go Option not Adequately Assessed

The need for a nuclear plant is just accepted by the EIR, based on government policy. It is not
acceptable for an EIA process to disregard alternatives based on a directive from the shareholder of
the applicant.
The EAP attempts to justify this in the Executive Summary: “it is beyond the remit of an EIA to
second-guess national policy decisions. As such the need and desirability for the NPS remains, in the
view of the environmental assessment team, a function of the dictates of the IRP 2010. The “No-go”
alternative, with respect to energy mix, is thus firmly rooted in the dictates of the IRP, and not in the
EIA process.”
It is not acceptable in terms of the regulations to disregard the No-go alternative in this manner. This
is especially true in the light the modelling used in the IRP 2010 that is now clearly incorrect in terms
of its prediction of electricity demand.

4.9.2. Unsubstantiated Characterisation of Nuclear Power

In support of their view that alternative power generation need not be assessed, in the document 10.
FEIR Impact Assessment.pdf the EAP writes “In terms of the benefits of the proposed activity, these
centre
principally around the provision of sustainable, reliable and affordable baseload power”. This reads
like an advertisement from the nuclear industry, and is not sufficiently justified in the EIR.
There are two examples which should have been explored in the EIR. Firstly, all modern nuclear
power reactors have a safety feature whereby when even a relatively minor earth tremor which would

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not damage the reactor is detected, the reactors are immediately shut down for safety reasons. This is
referred to as a SCRAM, which is different from a normal shut down which is done gradually. A
SCRAM results in fission products such as Xenon-135 which mean the reactor cannot be brought on
line for several days. As an example, if a country with 20% nuclear power and a 15% reserve margin
experiences a tremor which triggers reactor shutdown, it will be forced to implement rolling blackouts
until the restart is complete. We would have been interested to see an assessment of this w.r.t. the
reactor technology envisaged for Nuclear-1. It is questionable to simply characterise nuclear power as
“reliable” without assessing this scenario.
Secondly, if there is severe damage to the reactor containment building or reactor core from any cause
such as a more severe seismic event, equipment failure or sabotage, the nuclear plant would have its
operating licence withdrawn. By the nature of nuclear technology, in such a scenario the plant cannot
just be patched and restarted and may need to be decommissioned permanently. Once again, it is
questionable to fail to assess this possible scenario, and just to declare nuclear power as “sustainable,
reliable”.
Thirdly, nuclear power is clearly not currently affordable in South Africa, as declared by ex Finance
Minister Gigaba. This raises the question as to how the EAP arrived at the conclusion that nuclear
power is “affordable”, which is clearly false.
Including this unsubstantiated and glowing description of nuclear power is a disturbing indication of
bias on the part of the EAP.

4.9.3. Alternative Use of Land

In terms of sustainable development, alternative uses of the land, such as for housing, have not been
adequately investigated.
Urban centres in South Africa are likely to continue expanding. When the current nuclear plant at
Koeberg reaches the end of its life and is no longer considered to be operational, the restrictions on
development which apply to the 16km radius zone will no longer apply. This would allow other uses
of the land, such as for housing. By building a new plant with an 80 year lifespan, these other uses of
the land would be made impossible until at least the year 2108, given that the 800m zone is unlikely to
be accepted as discussed elsewhere in this document.

4.9.4. Disruptive Technology Convergence

Nuclear power is by its nature a long term commitment. As discussed above, this authorisation could
result in construction being started in 2028.
In the recent history of technological advances, there is a phenomenon described as disruptive
technology convergence. Two examples are the automobile, and the smart phone. Both of these
resulted from a combination and refinement of existing technologies and brought about a precipitous
change to tehnology and society.
Within the next decade, it is quite feasible that there will be another disruptive convergence in the
field of energy. Some technologies that may play a part in this are storage in the form of thermal

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storage of solar energy and distributed batteries such as the Tesla Powerwall, cheaper and more
efficient solar PV panels, smart grids, and electric vehicles which could result in a network of cars
providing electrical power to the grid during the evening peak.
It is possible that advances are made which render the current concept of 'baseload power plants'
entirely obsolete, and result in a grid in which is incompatible with a current technology nuclear plant,
with its poor load following ability. This could result in the entire expense of this project being a sunk
cost. Given the significance of the cost of the project expressed as a percentage of annual government
budget, this is a serious risk which cannot be ignored, and cannot be assessed now for a project which
may only begin so many years in the future.
The precautionary principle dictates that an authorisation cannot be issued now for a build which will
not start for at least five years, and therefore cannot take into account any potential technological
disruptions.

4.10. Intentional Overstatement of Need

This is described above as a procedural flaw, in that the EAP refused to include pertinent data on the
graph used as the primary justification of the need for this project.
In additional to being a procedural flaw, once the pertinent and readily available data is considered
(see above), it is also a substantive flaw in that the conclusion supporting the need is incorrect. Two
reports which arrive at this conclusion are the CSIR report 20170331-CSIR-EC-ESPO-REP-DOE-
1.1A Rev 1.1 and one by ERC of UCT titled South Africa’s proposed nuclear build plan: An analysis
of the potential socioeconomic risks.

4.11. Trivialisation of Threat of Terrorist Attack

Over the past decade, and specifically since the final report was submitted two years ago, there has
been an increase in the number of terrorist attacks worldwide. According to the GTD database
maintained by the University of Maryland, the total number of terrorist attacks globally has been
rising dramatically, from 2000 in 2005, to over 8000 in 2012, and is now over 14000 per annum. A
nuclear plant is an attractive target, as it is not a military installation, and the results of even a small
explosion can be catastrophic.
According to the ITDB list maintained by the IAEA, about 15 incidents per year are recorded of illicit
activity involving radioactive material.
Despite this very real risk the final EIR contains the word 'terrorist' just once in the Beyond Design
Basis Accident report (APP E33).
This document states: “In response to this some NPP designs now include double containment
structures and reduced above ground vertical profiles”, and “An example of how the designs of GEN
III reactors have evolved to include aircraft crash is that of the French EPR reactor. Originally the
EPR design basis considered the direct impact on the NPP of general aviation and military aircraft
only. After the 9/11 event the EPR design was enhanced to safely withstand a deliberate impact of a
large commercial aircraft, including the consequences of a fuel fire following the impact”.

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The fact that “some” designs are now hardened against this type of incident is of little relevance to the
specifics of this project. There is no assertion that the design eventually selected will be in this
category or not.
The EPR design of Areva is specifically mentioned, which appears to be entirely irrelevant, given that
Rosatom has emerged as the most likely vendor.
The authorisation cannot be given without a condition that stipulates that such a design must be
selected.
Should the plant be authorised without such a design condition, the safety risks described above could
be construed as misleading the public. The descriptions above infer that the public are safe due to the
design. But if such a design is not anywhere stipulated as mandatory, then the public have been
misinformed, contravening the regulations governing the EIA process.
What is more, new commercial airliners are being designed on a regular basis, and since the plant life
is expected to be 60 or 80 years, the design selected must be hardened against impact by airliners
which are significantly larger than those in use today.
Another risk not mentioned is that of remote hacking of control systems. It is well known that this
was done to the Iranian nuclear fuel fabrication facility, and could feasibly be done to a nuclear plant
in South Africa.
The EAP wrote in response to our submission: “Furthermore, the purpose of an EIA process is to
predict the potential impact of the development on the environment and not vice versa i.e. the
potential impact of possible terrorist attacks on the proposed development.”
This is a ludicrous response, as it implies, for example, that there is no need for a seismic risk
assessment. The first sentence of the executive summary for the seismic risk assessment (App E4) is
“In general the impact of a Nuclear Power Station on the geoscientific environment is insignificant
compared to the potential impact that the geoscientific environment may have on the proposed
Nuclear Power Station.”
This directly contradicts the above response of the EAP. The EAP has adapted their approach on such
a basic principle from place to place within the EIR, in order to support a concision favourable to the
applicant. This is a very clear indication of bias and we therefore ask the Department to take
appropriate action against the EAP and reject the report.

5. Other Reasons for Appealing

In addition to the above, other reasons for appealing the authorisation include the following. Due to
time and resource constraints, it has not been possible to go into each of these in the detail they
deserve.

5.1. Fresh Water Usage and Drought

We are concerned about prioritisation of fresh water allocations in the case that that drought in the
Western Cape persists or worsens. Due to safety concerns, it will simply not be possible to deny a

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nuclear plant the fresh water it requires.

5.2. Unaffordable
The cost of the project was not considered in terms of sustainable development, as is required.

5.3. Falsely Represented as a Solution to Climate Change

Many studies refute the claims of the nuclear industry that it is a zero carbon source of energy. The
full chain of construction, minings, enrichment, fuel fabrication, fuel transport, transport and disposal
of low and medium level waste emits carbon into the atmosphere. The process of final high level
waste disposal is not described in the EIR, and the carbon associated emissions are therefore
unknown.

5.4. Making a Long Term Commitment to a Dying Industry

Despite attempts from those supporting the nuclear option to describe a 'nuclear renaissance', whereby
the nuclear industry is in a growth phase, the fact is in terms of number of reactor shut downs versus
new builds clearly show an industry in decline, and most markedly in the west. This fall in demand
will, in terms of economics of scale, result in nuclear technology and services becoming harder to
source and more expensive. The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2017 goes into detail on this
point.

As can be seen from this graph, reactor sales have fallen dramatically since the heyday in the 1980s.
There was a slight rise from 2008, but there has been a decline again from that point, after the
Fukushima nuclear disaster.
If one looks at reactors under construction by region, according to the IAEA PRIS database
[https://www.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/UnderConstructionReactorsByRegion.aspx] there are only
4 nuclear reactors under construction in Western Europe and the USA combined. In the USA there are
two reactors under construction at the Vogtle plant. In Europe, the OLKILUOTO-3 reactor has been

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under construction for over 12 years, and FLAMANVILLE-3 has been under construction for over 10
years. This shows two trends: a dramatic move in the developed world away from new nuclear power,
and a tendency for construction projects to take significantly longer than expected.
Over the period 2006 to 2016 France, Japan, Germany and Sweden reduced the percentage of
electricity produced by nuclear, with little or no change in the UK and the USA. China and India of
often quoted as countries which are increasing their percentage of nuclear electricity generation, but
this is not significant when one considers that in 2016 the figure was only 3.6% for China, and 3.4%
for India [https://www.ft.com/content/36bee56a-3a01-11e7-821a-6027b8a20f23]. Both of these
figures are less than the approximately 5% that South Africa already gets from nuclear power.
The risk of lock-in to a fading industry in terms of sustainable development was not covered in this
EIR.

5.5. Risk of Time and Cost Overruns

As described above, the two reactors under construction in Western Europe have taken considerably
longer than first planned. Since South Africa aims to implement international best practice, it is
appropriate to look at current projects in Western Europe .
FLAMANVILLE-3 is 6 years over schedule as at the time of writing: the original start up date of 2013
has been shifted out, with grid connection predicted to be in May 2019 [http://www.world-nuclear-
news.org/NN-EDF-confirms-Flamanville-EPR-start-up-schedule-1207174.html], with further delays
possible. The cost has more than tripled, from 3.3 billion euro to 10.5 billion euro.
Again according to World Nuclear News [http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Olkiluoto-3-
commercial-operation-rescheduled-0910177.html] construction of OLKILUOTO-3 began in 2005
and was originally scheduled for completion in 2009, but the date has repeatedly been shifted, with
current predictions for grid connection in May 2019. That would mean the construction phase took
more than three times what was originally predicted, with a budget overrun similar to the Flamville
project.
The French government has found it necessary to inject 4.5 billion euro into the company doing the
construction to keep this project afloat, again highlighting the type of economic impact is possible.
Since cost of capital will be a significant portion of the cost of this project, a three times schedule
overrun would have huge implications in terms of compounded interest. The potential impact of this
in terms of sustainable development and project alternatives has not been considered in the EIR. The
claim of the EAP, that since nuclear is government policy there is no obligation to consider
alternatives, is not consistent with the principles of NEMA.

5.6. Inflexibility of Project Inappropriate to an Uncertain

Environment
In the uncertain economic times in which we find ourselves, the ability to adapt is paramount.
Committing now to a 10 year build project, starting sometime after 2023, to supply a fixed amount of
electricity at a fixed point in the future is the antithesis of flexibility.

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This was not explored under the discussion of alternatives. Once again, the claim by the EAP that a
policy set by the shareholder of the applicant absolves them of the responsibility of exploring
alternatives, is not consistent with the principles of NEMA.

5.7. Invalid Scoping out of Other Sites

Initially other sites, far more distant from densely populated areas were being considered. The means
by which these were eliminated was not robust. In addition, reasons such as “time constraints” which
were given at the time were clearly invalid, given the number of years that have passed since, the drop
in electricity demand, and the recent announcement by ex Finance Minister Gigaba that South Africa
will not be able to afford a nuclear build at least for the next five years.
In the minutes of a meeting recorded in point 2 on page 103 recorded of the document APP B4
Authority Correspondence RDEIR v1.pdf Ms Ball, the lead EAP, said of the other potential sites:
“... also they were scoped out because of the urgent need for more power generation.” and that “...
South Africa is currently facing an energy crisis.” Both of these statements are false in the current
context.
We note that the department wrote to the EAP as recorded in the document APP B4 Authority
Correspondence RDEIR v1.pdf: “There is concern that the NSIP should have been revised and
updated to take into account these new factors, not to mention changes in population growth since
1982.”
Given the ten year life of an authorisation, this could mean that a site would be used for construction
based on a site selection process made using data which would by then be over half a century old.

5.8. Agricultural study fails to quantify economic impacts

This study failed to provide any quantification for the economic impact on the agricultural sector in
the case of a radioactive leak from the plant. It also uses figures from 2008/2009, which will be a
decade out of date before the construction even starts.
Page 45 of the Agricultural specialist study states “In this case the stock would need to be slaughtered
or moved outside the danger area”. We asked in our submission that the economic impact of this be
quantified. The EAP refused to address this, instead replying “given that the probability of an
incident happening is very low, the discussion, assessment and “carry through” of impacts must be
seen in this context”,
The EAP wrote further “issues of a radiological nature that cannot be resolved within the EIA process
must be referred to the NNR for consideration.” Since the NNR is not obliged to study and quantify
impact on the environment, such as agriculture in the region, this means such an impact will not be
quantified.
Furthermore the Department instructed the EAP to assess “indirect impacts including consumer
perceptions and hence avoidance of products produced in proximity to the proposed power station
should be explored”. An attempt at this was made in section 3.6 of the Agricultural study. However,
the potential impacts of changes in perception after an accident have been ignored.

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In the same way that few people would want to buy mushrooms from the Fukushima province in
Japan now, in the case of a severe accident at Koeberg few people would want to buy wine or dairy
products from the Western Cape. The potential economic impact of the loss of export markets has not
been assessed.

5.9. Botany Assessment

We were not able to locate a peer review specifically for the Dune Botany report. Also, we have
issues with the implication that since the original Koeberg plant has damaged the dunes in unexpected
ways, further damage is of little impact. We have concerns re biodiversity that the Koeberg reserve
was presented as an offset for botanical damage due to the original nuclear plant, and now a new plant
would be built within this reserve.

5.10. Alternatives Insufficiently Studied w.r.t. Job Creation

In particular, the effect of distributed employment resulting from renewables such as wind farms and
solar on the West coast and in the Northern Cape, as compared to the rush of temporary jobs as one
location, was not studied.

5.11. Chapter 7 Methodology Removed

In previous versions of the EIR chapter 7 dealt with methodology. This chapter has been dropped
from the final version, and we are uncertain why this change was made, or we we could have located
the information re methodology that was previously contained in this chapter.

6. Summary
Here we describe why we believe the Department erred in the list of key factors it presented in the
Authorisation, as well as the remedial action required.

6.1. Key Factors in Making the Authorisation

In terms of the key factors listed as a) to f) on page 17 of the authorisation:

6.1.1. a) Need for Increased Baseload

As we have shown, the need is highly questionable, and not supported by current data. Current
demand is lower than it was in 2008. This factor is therefore invalid.

6.1.2. b) Supported by the IRP

As is apparent in the draft IRP2016 the updated IRP in fact recommends delaying the nuclear build.
In the current context, the IRP2016 does not support the need for nuclear power now. This factor is
therefore invalid.

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6.1.3. c) EIR is Adequate
We have shown there are missing reports, peer reviews and Cvs in the EIR as initially released. We
also described how the EAP has wilfully failed to put relevant data before the decision maker. This
factor is therefore invalid. This view is shared by many of the peer reviewers appointed by the EAP,
although these views are not well reflected in the executive summary of the specialist reports prepared
by the EAP.

6.1.4. d) Specialist Studies of a High Standard

We have shown how several of the scientific studies are deeply flawed and inadequate. This factor is
therefore invalid.

6.1.5. e) Public Participation Process was Comprehensive

We have given an example where the EAP discouraged public participation by pre-empting the siting
decision by the department. This had the effect of creating the false belief that residents of Cape Town
and surrounding areas need not participate, as Thyspunt was the preferred site. In addition,
communities such as those in Khayelitsha and Joe Slovo which may be affected by socio-economic
factors relating to migrant workers, and possibly evacuation plans, were not given adeuate
opportunities to engage with the EIA. This factor is therefore invalid.

6.1.6. f) All Legal and Procedural Requirements met

We have described several procedural flaws in section 3 of this appeal. This factor is therefore
invalid.

6.2. Remedial Action Required

The Department of Environmental Affairs must withdraw the Authorisation, and refer the above points
back to the EAP. Once the inadequate specialist reports are updated, and peer reviewed, we request
that we are again allowed to participate to evaluate these updated reports.

7. Conclusion
We believe the EIR cannot be accepted as it is. In some aspects the EIR is not legally and procedurally
correct and in some very important scientific and technical aspects the EIR is incomplete and deeply
flawed. We believe that a decision to allow this authorisation to stand has no chance of withstanding a
court review on the basis of rationality.
Contributors to this appeal inlcude:
Peter Becker, B.Sc. Applied Maths (Hons)
Dr Andreas Spath, PhD Geology
Robert Isted, M.Sc. Applied Maths
Dr Anthony Reed, MBChB DA(UK) FRCA MMed(Anaes)(UCT) PG Dipl Health

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 Management

8. List of Attachments
The following documents which are referenced within this document are attached to our appeal:

 APP B3 DEA letter dated 10.05.10.pdf

 Appeal-Nuclear1-KAA.doc

 EPRI-2010-Tech_Data_for_Integ_Plan_of_South_Africa_July_08_2010_Final.pdf

 EPRI-2015-Report-Power-Generation-Technology-Data-for-IRP-of-SA.pdf

 NNR Response Letter PAIA REQUEST PBecker 15Nov17.pdf

 Nuclear-1 EIA_IRR 45t_Long Submission_Koeberg Alert Alliance_Final.pdf

 Nuclear-1 EIA Letter to Peter Becker Koeberg Alert Alliance FINAL.pdf

 Nuclear-1 RDEIR V2 IRR S030 (KAA)_v4_2016.02.21.pdf

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