Experts raise alarm over safety concerns at Koeberg

THE Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute (Safcei) is sounding the alarm over Eskom’s controversial plans regarding the Koeberg Nuclear Power Plant, as discussions heat up around a potential 20-year licence extension for Unit 2. Experts, including Safcei’s Executive Director Francesca de Gasparis, argue that the National Nuclear Regulator (NNR) is poised to approve the extension based on absent, outdated, and incomplete safety data - a decision that they claim violates the spirit and letter of South Africa's nuclear safety regulations.

- STAFF REPORTER

At the heart of this mounting controversy lies Eskom’s Time-Limited Ageing Analysis (TLAA), a new engineering report that seeks to assess the condition of Unit 2 by extrapolating data from the completely different Unit 1 reactor. “This is not science; it is dangerous wishful thinking that could put lives at risk” she asserts. The TLAA rests on three key assumptions, one of which suggests that critical post-tensioning tendons within the Unit 2 containment building will remain free from corrosion over the next 20 years. Alarmingly, the Impressed Current Cathodic Protection (ICCP) system, intended to prevent such corrosion, has experienced multiple delays and remains uninstalled. As outlined