Koeberg Unit Two down – AGAIN!

Posted on November 6th, 2006 by Richard Catto 1,632 views

Eskom investigates Koeberg reactor shutdown

The Mail and Guardian article (linked above) contains a factual error. Koeberg’s two nuclear reactors each produce 900MW (Megawatts) of power for a total of 1800MW, not 900MW as stated in the M&G article. I know this from the background research I did earlier this year for the article I wrote at that time regarding Koeberg’s problems.

Koeberg Unit Two shut itself down automatically yesterday (Sunday Nov 5 2006). It is now operating at only 6% capacity, while they struggle to get it back up again and investigate what caused the shut down.

This is the ongoing saga of electricity supply problems in the Western Cape. In August this year, Eskom said that it was not negligent in respect of the power outages the Western Cape experienced earlier this year.

Eskom is the company responsible for supplying ALL of South Africa’s electricity needs. Yet another South African monopoly. Cities are, however, allowed to operate their own local power stations.

However South Africa’s electricity regulator did find them to be negligent and guilty of not living up to their licensing agreement.

Then there are a lot of meelie mouthed words by the head of Eskom, Mr. Thulani Gcabashe, but the bottom line is that Eskom did not have its shit together then, and perhaps not even now, because Koeberg has suddenly become unreliable after all these years of giving reliable service. The problem is that basic maintenance procedures are not being followed.

Gcabashe is a bullshitter.

Filed under electricity, Koeberg |

3 Responses to “Koeberg Unit Two down – AGAIN!”

1. Finanu Says:
   November 7th, 2006 at 17:19

   Koeberg is obviously an excellent example of Eskom’s inefficiency and poor planning. But it all kind of misses the point. It is really time South Africa got its act together on the renewable energy front. Rather than nibbling at the edges of the issue as is being done currently, with subsidised conversion to gas (hardly very eco-friendly in itself) and blankets for geysers, we should be driving hard to start utilising some of that wonderful resource we have plenty of here in South Africa – sunshine.

   It is astonishing that in this country, so blessed with excellent weather, we don’t have a much greater penetration of solar powered geysers. If everyone with a geyser converted to solar power (even with electric back up) tomorrow, I would hazard a guess that there would be no power shortage in the Cape.

   Instead, we are spending billions of rand on pebble bed reactors when we haven’t even started (in spite of the window dressing suggesting the opposite) working on demand side management. Subsidising solar powered geysers would dramatically improve their availability while competition would work to reduce their current excessive price. Legislation to require solar powered geysers in all new properties would be easily created and have an almost instant effect.

   Come on, guys, what about Kyoto?

2. mkw Says:
   November 7th, 2006 at 22:48

   Not only is Thulani Gcabashe a bullshitter, but he also falls into the new South African profile of idiots who earn extremely large salaries for doing absolutely nothing. Its really become time for ordinary, everyday South Africans to stand up and throw these idiots off there perches. As for the first response, I agree 100%, but then again its the same thing with the water shortage issue. We have a coastline that almost encircles our country, yet we still have not figured out how to get fresh water from the ocean.

3. Finanu Says:
   November 10th, 2006 at 11:21

   Let us not confuse available technology with undeveloped technology. The extraction of freshwater from salt water is at present an expensive process, both financially and environmentally (where do you put the salt?). The heating of domestic water by solar power is achievable and affordable (well, apart from here) and has no of negligible environmental impact.

   The reduction in use of centrally distributed power resulting from the widespread use of solar water heating would result in a dramatic reduction in the production of greenhouse gases (South Africa is a high net contributor to these). Of course Eskom would make less money, and would not need to re to such grandiose and high budget plans to resolve the power shortage problem, both of which results are unlikely to appeal to the management.

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