CAPE TOWN (Reuters) -South Africa’s environment minister on Friday upheld a previous decision granting environmental authorisation for state-owned power utility Eskom to build and operate a new nuclear power station in Western Cape province.
Environmentalists had appealed against the original 2017 authorisation for a new 4,000-megawatt nuclear power station being built at Duynefontein, close to the Koeberg plant near Cape Town that is currently the only existing commercial nuclear power in Africa.
“The granting of an environmental authorisation does not exempt an applicant from complying with any other applicable legal requirements or obtaining permits from other competent authorities,” Dion George, Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, said in a statement.
South Africa regards nuclear power as a critical part of its baseload energy mix as it diversifies away from coal-fired plants that supply the bulk of its electricity needs to more renewable energy sources.
(Reporting by Wendell Roelf; editing by Sfundo Parakozov and Mark Heinrich)
