WISE Amsterdam: Anti-nuclear activists have opposed the PBMR project right since it was first announced. They have pointed out that constructing a nuclear reactor without a containment building, as PBMR Company proposes, makes it virtually a sitting target for terrorist attacks. They have pointed out that both the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe and the 1957 Windscale accident involved graphite catching fire - yet the PBMR uses graphite to enclose its nuclear fuel "pebbles". And they have exposed the staggering hypocrisy of proposing nuclear technology for developing countries when many developed countries have already rejected nuclear in favor of cheaper, safer alternatives.
However, this time the "critical" comment comes not from anti-nuclear activists but from the nuclear industry's own press agency NucNet. When NucNet runs a feature entitled "PBMR Success Depends 'Critically' On No Delays, Says Study", then it is clear that the PBMR faces a difficult time.
Virtually all "new" nuclear technologies have experienced problems and delays in implementation, but the PBMR Company is taking a particularly big gamble. While virtually all other new reactor designs were first tested on small-scale prototypes, the PBMR Company say this is not necessary because reactors of similar design have already been built and operated successfully. However, all four of the reactors quoted in their feasibility study have long since been shut down.
For example, the Thorium High-Temperature Reactor (THTR) in Hamm, Germany was a full-size prototype reactor. Just like the full-size prototype PBMR being proposed for Koeberg in South Africa, the THTR was intended to demonstrate the safety and commercial viability of pebble-bed technology. However, it was shut down permanently following a release of radiation so large that it was initially blamed on the Chernobyl accident.
The PBMR design is critically dependent on high-quality fuel, as the feasibility study admits. Indeed, imperfections in fuel pellet manufacture could lead to higher radiation releases during normal operation than for conventional nuclear reactors.
Shaky economics
In order to make the PBMR cost-competitive, the PBMR Company needs to sell large numbers of reactors to benefit from economies of scale. The PBMR business plan proposes building 258 reactors over 25 years - over 7 times the number of power reactors currently under construction in the entire world. Yet the feasibility study claims there is a market to build a staggering 1175 reactors - over 21/2 times the total number of power reactors in the world today!
The PBMR plans therefore have the potential to mark the start of a new nuclear nightmare. Fortunately, recent events indicate that they may well turn out instead to be no more than a pipe dream. Exelon, the biggest US nuclear utility, has already pulled out of the PBMR development project (see WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor 567.5398, "Exelon pulls out of pebble-bed project").
The financial risks involved in the nuclear industry were recently underscored by the collapse of the share price of British Energy. The problems underlying this collapse - the difficulty for nuclear to compete in liberalized electricity markets, plus technical problems with a couple of nuclear power stations - are problems than the PBMR project stands little chance of avoiding.
Instead of developing a new generation of nuclear reactors with all their risks and uncertainties involved, South Africa could better meet its energy demand by using tried and tested renewable energy technologies and energy conservation measures.
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On 24 August, Greenpeace activists from nine different countries mounted an action at the Koeberg nuclear power station, about 20 miles (30 km) north of Cape Town. The activists scaled the walls of a cooling-water pump-station on the site and hung up a banner with the words "Nukes Out Of Africa".
Koeberg is Africa's only nuclear power station. It has also been chosen as the site for the prototype Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR), which PBMR Company hopes will be the first of hundreds of PBMR modules. Greenpeace wanted to draw attention to this, and calls on politicians to stop wasting money by subsidizing nuclear and coal-fired power stations, but instead to invest in sustainable energy projects.
Activists from Taiwan are in Johannesburg to protest against the deplorable conditions at the nuclear waste dump on Orchid Island off the coast of Taiwan, and also against the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant (also known as Lungmen).
Anti-nuclear activists from other countries include a group from South Korea, one of the major countries where new nuclear power stations are still being built. And from France, Europe's largest producer and exporter of nuclear electricity, an activist covered the exhibition stand of state-owned utility Electricité de France with "certified pro-nuclear" stickers.
