Deadly cost of power

Before March 11, not many people outside Japan had heard of the towns of Okuma and Futaba. Now the area around the towns, home to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, one of the 15 largest nuclear power stations in the world, has been splashed across news stations around the world.

When the 9.0 earthquake and resultant tsunami hit Japan, the reactor cooling systems of the plant were disabled, which led to nuclear radiation leaks that required a 20km-radius evacuation zone.

The security category of the crisis has now reached level 7, equal to the Chernobyl disaster, which means a major release of radiation and a widespread health and environmental impact, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency .

But experts are saying the new rating exaggerates the severity of the crisis, and that the Chernobyl disaster was far worse.

April 26 will be the 26th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. The blast at Chernobyl blew the roof off a reactor and sent large amounts of radiation wafting across Europe. The accident led to the evacuation of well over 100000 people and affected livestock as far away as Scandinavia and Britain.

Against this backdrop and ever since President Jacob Zuma's visit to France to discuss plans for our nuclear power developments, a debate is raging in South Africa over whether nuclear power is a safe alternative for energy in this country.

Some residents of Krugersdorp are have been relocated because of high levels of radiation detected on a mine in the vicinity and our National Nuclear Regulator plans to distribute hundreds of leaflets to teach the affected community how to protect themselves from mining radiation.

Environmental group Earthlife SA believes nuclear power is not only risky but also complex, dangerous and expensive.

"It's reckless insanity to continue with the nuclear programme in South Africa," said Tristan Taylor, spokesman for Earthlife SA.

In the same week the disaster in Japan took place, Eskom announced that South Africa is "well-equipped" to have nuclear power stations, and that we have a good nuclear safety culture.

"Clearly we'd be looking at what actually happened in Japan, but South Africa has a nuclear safety culture because of Koeberg station," Eskom spokesman for nuclear power, Tony Scott, told Sapa.

Taylor argued: "We don't take a breath to reassess our security schemes. This government just goes ahead with its nuclear stance, even after China put a moratorium on its nuclear projects to think about its nuclear security.

"Do we need nuclear power at the great cost of this power?" he asked.

"Not only is it unsafe, it is also one of the most expensive ways of powering this country. Aside from the costs of building and running the nuclear plants, we also require a police force to guard them."

Eskom's Scott has a different perspective: "How many people are killed on the roads every day compared to people killed in the nuclear industry?

"Obviously if something does go wrong in nuclear the consequences are enormous."

But, he said most of the nuclear reactors at power stations in Japan shut themselves down as they were supposed to, following the earthquake and tsunami.

Taylor, however, asks: "Why are we going down the nuclear road when we have safer and cheaper alternatives, such as renewable wind and solar energy?

'We should be putting combined state funds from taxation, revenue from the sale of electricity and debt into renewable energy. South Africans should be questioning not only where their electricity comes from, but also the social investment that this country is making in the supply of electricity."

Scott was positive about South Africa's ability to supply safe nuclear power.

"If we do build more [nuclear power stations], we would buy modern technology, and certainly the events that happened [in Japan] would be looked at and taken into account to see what technology should be used," he said.

But Taylor says that going forward with nuclear technology is a mistake.

"Nuclear energy requires a lot of state funding.

"We know we can manufacture what we need for renewable energy locally, like windmills and solar geysers. We have the industrial base to go renewable. Plus there are distinctive safety advantages.

"The danger of nuclear energy is that it can have adverse effects on the young that are only discernable after many years. [With renewable energy] the worst thing that can happen if a windmill falls down is that it kills a cow."