Eskom shelves Koeberg II nuclear power station

Posted on December 5th, 2008 by Richard Catto 2,191 views

Eskom announced today that the bid to build a second nuclear power station on the site of the existing Koeberg nuclear power station has been ended and that they are not going forward with the project at this time. The reason given by Eskom is that the project is too costly for them.

It has been estimated that the project was going to cost Eskom in the region of (US$10-12 billion) R100-120 billion. However this is not news to Eskom. In September 2007, an article in Engineering news makes it clear that Eskom was aware that it would definitely cost more than the R80 billion they were spending on developing another coal fired plant at Lephalale.

Yesterday, the World Bank approved in principle a loan of US$5 billion to Eskom over the next 5 years.

So if Eskom knew the project was going to cost about R100 billion over a year ago, and they expressed total confidence then that this new reactor was going to be built as soon as possible, and they have been approved a massive loan for the amount they asked, why this ridiculous decision then to abandon the project?

I can only speculate that the real reason is that South Africa plans to renege on Kyoto 2012, when carbon taxes come into effect that would make coal fired power stations more expensive than nuclear power stations. If South Africa reneges and refuses to pay the carbon tax, then coal fired stations are a much cheaper option and Eskom will probably divert most of its budget into building as many coal fired power stations as it can.

Tags: Eskom
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One Response to “Eskom shelves Koeberg II nuclear power station”

1. Atomic Insights Says:
   December 7th, 2008 at 13:03

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   On Friday, December 5, 2008, Eskom, the giant South African utility, announced its decision to halt the…

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