No radiation leak in South Africa nuclear plant, says regulator
South Africa’s nuclear regulator said Thursday that no radioactive material leaked into the environment during three recent “contamination” events inside Africa’s only nuclear power station.
The incidents involved “elevated airborne radioactive contamination” inside the Koeberg Power Station, on South Africa’s west coast, when there was a loss of power to ventilation units during maintenance work, the National Nuclear Regulator said, adding there was no danger to the public.
It said the three separate contamination events on June 30, July 2 and July 7 were contained inside the station. Workers inside the power station who may have been exposed were screened and recorded radioactive contamination below the radioactivity a person is exposed to when they have a dental X-ray, the NNR said.
The regulator said that while it was conducting further inspections, the recent events “did not meet the criteria for classification as a nuclear or radiological incident or emergency and did not result in any off-site radiological consequences.” The Koeberg plant is located around 40 km north of South Africa’s second biggest city, Cape Town. It is Africa’s only commercial nuclear power station and was commissioned in the 1980s during apartheid. It has two reactors which generate around 5 per cent of South Africa’s electricity and is operated by the national electricity company, Eskom.
Its reactors were recently granted 20-year life extensions, clearing them to be operational until after 2040. South Africa has plans to expend its commercial nuclear capability with new stations to support its unreliable and polluting energy supply, which is struggling to provide for a growing population and heavily based on burning coal.
Other countries are also turning more towards nuclear power to meet skyrocketing energy demands despite long-held safety fears from opponents of nuclear power citing disasters like Chernobyl and, more recently, Fukushima in Japan.
