LETTER: Koeberg is safe, agency’s report has found

One can sympathise with Lee Roethlisberger, who was in Prague when the Chernobyl nuclear accident happened, but he need have no fears over Koeberg (“Threats posed by Koeberg are worrying”, January 10).

The Chernobyl event, by far the worst nuclear power accident yet, but the only one to cost human lives, was caused primarily by a terrible reactor design and only secondarily by the violation of safety regulations by the operator.

Chernobyl used RBMK reactors, which would never be allowed in the West. But Russia also had VVER reactors, similar to Koeberg PWR reactors, and these have run with complete safety under the same brutal, incompetent, secretive communist regime as Chernobyl.

Nuclear has by far the best safety record of any energy technology. In the 55 years since Chernobyl no-one has been killed in nuclear power accidents, but tens of thousands of people have been killed in coal, gas, oil and hydro accidents.

In the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident, caused by the disgraceful failure of the Japanese regulator to protect against a 14m tsunami (easy to do), no-one was harmed by the radiation, though some people died in the evacuation.

Koeberg has run safely since it started up in 1984. There have been blunders and delays recently, but none has affected safety. A recent safety report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) found no concerns beyond routine maintenance matters, such as refurbishing of cabling.

The threat of corrosion to the R-bars of the containment building is being dealt with. Koeberg is safe. I would love to live right next to it, but can’t afford to do so.

Andrew Kenny
Sun Valley

JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.