Does R2K really know?
OBVIOUSLY the Right2Know campaign is entitled to ask what research and discussion has gone into the government’s debate around electric power production. However, making this public will probably not be very informative, partly because it is likely to be quite technical, and partly because the whole debate is rooted in politics rather than technicalities.
There are essentially two positions around electric power production in South Africa. Those who genuinely want the country to develop naturally want more electric power plants – in order for SA to become a manufacturing country once more, we badly need electric power.
Those who want to make a lot of money out of privatising Eskom on the other hand, want there to be no more electric power plants because building these increases Eskom’s debt and makes it unlikely that anyone would want to buy the SOE, making privatisation moot.
I want SA to prosper, so I want more power plants. Whether electric power should be produced by nuclear or coal plants is a technical one. Does Right2Know actually address this question?
Consider the questions they ask. The first is why SA should buy nuclear when other sources of electricity are better, safer and cheaper. If Right2Know knows this, they already know everything which needs to be known about nuclear, so why ask for info? More importantly, why keep their sources of information secret?
They then ask why SA should buy nuclear when other countries are not. This begs the question of whether Right2Know really understands the subject. Russia, China, Korea, Britain and France are energetically building nuclear plants. Almost the only major countries not doing so are the US and Germany, both of which run on fossil fuels.
They also ask why SA should buy power plants at all, given that people need houses, schools and hospitals. This is, as Right2Know surely knows, a spurious alternative. People, houses, schools and hospitals all need electricity. For people to have employment, electricity is needed.
If Right2Know is being dishonest in this field, are they being dishonest in others?
They then ask why SA is keeping the nuclear issue a secret. As the nuclear debate has appeared in the courts and information has appeared on websites, it’s hard to see how this is a secret. It’s true the press has claimed there is a secret nuclear deal, but no evidence for it has been presented by anybody and it is unlikely it exists. — Mathew Blatchford, Alice
NOTE TO WRITERS: