nuclear-news

This year’s production figures also include the more than 2,000MW that is produced by private, renewable-power operators.

Yet for the past year the utility has been feeding the nation the lie that it has improved its generation performance, pointing at the absence of load shedding as proof. Only when confronted with the evidence do Eskom’s executives reluctantly admit that the much lower demand “has contributed” to the lack of load shedding.

Stats SA collects its information from the utility itself. So who is Eskom fooling with its public-relations spin?

Now that they have been repeating the “superb performance” narrative, Eskom’s managers are beginning to believe it and are becoming more ambitious and brazen. Generation chief Matshela Koko has been generating a storm of hot air about why Eskom must handle the procurement of the next fleet of nuclear power stations. And now that energy minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson has effectively handed the responsibility to Eskom, the utility says it will use its balance sheet to fund the nuclear power stations, which it would operate when the first one comes into operation by 2026……..

While I believe that SA does need to build more nuclear power stations in order to restore energy security, I do not think Eskom can be trusted with such a huge, risky and expensive exercise at this stage. And I believe we only need to build a maximum 3,000MW of new nuclear capacity during the next 20 years, not the 9,600MW government has been pushing for.

As a start, it is fanciful and misleading at best to say a nuclear power station can be commissioned by 2026. Certainly not by Eskom. The worst possibility is that Eskom executives are deliberately misleading SA into believing they can efficiently manage such a process.

Over budget and years late

Since August 2007, Eskom has been bumbling and unnecessarily costing SA billions trying to build the Medupi and Kusile power stations. Both are way over budget and at least five years late.

It is not only lack of skills causing these delays and cost overruns. Corruption inside Eskom and at government level has played the biggest role. And corruption has since got worse, not better.

The biggest lie in Eskom’s bid to control the nuclear procurement is that it has a balance sheet capable of handling such a commitment. Koko conveniently forgets that in 2009 Eskom abandoned its nuclear build programme, and handed the responsibility to government.

The reason was stated clearly: Eskom alone could not afford the commitment, said then chief generation officer Brian Dames in 2009. The utility has since leant on government for financial guarantees and bailouts to support its current capital investment programme. The taxpayer is exposed to more than R170bn in Eskom guarantees alone. Eskom did not have the money then. It does not have it now.