By Edward West

A new nuclear power station has been added to a list of options for the abandoned international airport site in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal economic development MEC Mike Mabuyakhulu told the provincial legislature this week.

However, plans to build a nuclear power station need to be informed by the Department of Energy’s Integrated Resource Plan , expected to be released in a few weeks, Eskom nuclear projects spokesman Tony Stott said yesterday.

Energy Minister Dipuo Peters has described the resource plan as a “seminal electricity plan that is expected to outline the country’s electricity landscape for the next two decades”.

Other options considered for the site are the expansion of the port, an industrial development zone and a petrochemical industrial hub.

The MEC’s spokesman, Bheku Madlala, said a meeting would be convened “soon” for an intergovernmental task team, headed by the MEC, to decide on the matter.

Mr Stott said Eskom had no plans to build a nuclear power plant at the old airport at this stage.

“The last time we looked at potential sites for nuclear power stations was in the 1980 s and 1990s. It takes years of work to get done.”

Geology, ecology, demographics, electricity demand and potential growth of the area were factors that needed to be researched when choosing a nuclear site, he said.

In 2008, when Eskom was considering building a new 3500MW nuclear plant, it identified five potential sites.

Two were on the Northern Cape coast — at Brazil, near Kleinzee, and Schulpfontein, near Hondeklipbaai. Eskom halted a tender process on a new nuclear plant at the end of 2008 for financial reasons.

The public participation process of the IRP was scheduled to commence on September 1, but was delayed by a number of weeks. Ms Peters said the Inter Ministerial Committee (IMC) had requested the department to do further work on the IRP before the committee finalised it. following a presentation to the IMC on August 31.

The committee considering the potential use of the airport site includes representatives of the Airports Company, Dube Trade Port, the eThekwini Municipality and the national departments of transport, trade and industry.

Source: Business Day