Underground danger at Thyspunt overlooked

IT WOULD be near impossible to build a nuclear power station safely at Thyspunt‚ near Jeffreys Bay‚ because of deep‚ hidden canyons in the bedrock covered by sand and soft rock‚ a geological study has found.

The study was corroborated by another from a PhD candidate at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University that detected evidence of a large paleo-seismic event along an Eastern Cape fault line 10 000 years ago.

It looks set to blow a hole in Eskom’s environmental impact assessment study for the area that found it technically safe and environmentally friendly to build a nuclear power station.

Thyspunt‚ 90km from Port Elizabeth‚ is one of Eskom’s top two preferred sites for a nuclear power station. It comprises a relatively flat area of hard rock close to sea level‚ covered by wetland and fynbos.

Eskom applied for a licence for the site with the National Nuclear Regulator in March.

The study was the work of a geology master’s student at the university.

Professor Maarten de Wit‚ director of the Africa Earth Observatory Network‚ has written a report summarising the findings of the two, in which he warns that the risks at Thyspunt have not been properly examined and that the evidence is overwhelming that the site is unsuitable.

The first study reveals what he describes as “a simple but to date unexpected message from the subsurface: cut into the hard bedrock on which the nuclear station must be built‚ are paleo-valleys and canyons hidden below the . . . dune sands and soft sedimentary rock”.

The study discovered four such previously unknown paleo-canyons that extend inland well below the present sea level‚ he says.

“When I saw her [the master’s student’s] work I was shocked.

“Eskom looked at all this data and they missed the most important thing‚” he said.

“The hard rock is almost 20m below sea level. Just one big sweep of sea could dislodge that sand and rock.” — TMG Digital/ BusinessLIVE