Greenpeace activists from five countries today launched a pre-dawn protest at Koeberg, Africaís only nuclear power plant as world leaders gather in Johannesburg for the Earth Summit
Greenpeace activists from five countries today launched a
pre-dawn protest at Koeberg, Africa?s only nuclear power plant, in
order to push nuclear power technology out of Africa as world
leaders gather in Johannesburg for the Earth Summit on sustainable
development.
Six activists, three women and three men, from the Netherlands,
Australia, Mexico, Argentina, Lebanon, landed on a jetty alongside
the plant and climbed onto the roof of nearby buildings before
dropping a banner that read "Nukes Out of Africa". The
international environmental group's ship, the Esperanza, which is
in South Africa for the duration of the Summit, was off shore.
Despite a fifty-year nuclear history of lies, cover-ups, broken
promises and vast radioactive contamination, plans are still being
drawn up by South Africa?s state-owned power utility, ESKOM, to
build and sell new breed of mini nuclear power stations.
"Koeberg is Africa?s only nuclear power plant and should be the
last. We are calling on the South African Government to reject
ESKOM?s dangerous plans, to be leaders in the renewable energy
revolution, not followers down the dirty and dangerous road of
nuclear and fossil fuels," said Mike Townsley of Greenpeace.
The arguments against nuclear power are well rehearsed. The
industry is in terminal decline. Its much vaunted promises of
?clean, cheap, safe and reliable? energy have come to nothing.
Instead, the 20th century nuclear dream has turned into a 21st
century nightmare of mountains of long-lived deadly radioactive
wastes, accidents, contamination and nuclear proliferation.
Greenpeace calls on governments attending the Johannesburg Earth
Summit to channel the US$250 billion annual subsidies squandered on
nuclear and fossil fuels into clean, renewable energy
alternatives.
Governments from around the world are also urged to make a
commitment to provide affordable renewable energy to the two
billion people, a third of the planet, who live without
electricity, and to ensure that renewable resources provide 10% of
global energy by 2010.
Greenpeace is also seeking a commitment that international
financial institutions be required to move 20% of their energy
investments to clean, renewable energy.
"Energy development must not be allowed to be driven by the
shallow self-serving interests of a few powerful corporations.
World governments must take the lead in rejecting dangerous and
obsolete nuclear and fossil fuel power, and instead they must adopt
binding targets for renewable energy production," Townsley
said.
Koeberg, 30 kilometres from Cape Town, currently provides 6% of
the country?s electricity. The new reactor being promoted by ESKOM
is known as Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR). Countries such as
Germany and the United States have toyed with similar demonstration
plants in the past but subsequently abandoned them
despite serious financial implications.
VVPR info: Photos and Video available through Greenpeace Earth Summit Office in Johannesburg.Photos: Steve Morgan (+27) 828583449; Video: David Woolford (+27) 828583110