Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan did not use the word "nuclear" even once while delivering his budget speech. By chance, while he was delivering his speech, the High Court in Cape Town was hearing a case against the government regarding the illegal process and secrecy surrounding the nuclear-expansion programme to date.After all the hype in the media recently around the nuclear expansion programme, potentially costing R1-trillion, it is curious that nuclear power was entirely omitted from the budget speech. Or is it?The consensus emerging among energy analysts and modellers across the country is that we simply do not need further nuclear expansion. Just last week, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research presented the portfolio committee on energy with its "least cost" energy plan to 2050, which has no new nuclear build.Yet its plan is cheaper, produces less carbon dioxide emissions and uses less water than the draft Department of Energy plans that include nuclear. By 2050,...
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