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Earthlife Africa Press statement 22 June 2004 Nuclear Energy Definitely Avoidable In her Budget speech today, the Minister of Minerals and Energy Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka announced earlier today that the government will consider nuclear energy for future energy generation. She further argued that nuclear energy is unavoidable and therefore, cannot be overlooked for being one of the energy options for South Africa. "Well?… let?’s just say that the Minister has been misinformed and does not have the facts right, someone has to set the record straight before everyone else gets it totally wrong" said Sibusiso Mimi, Campaigner for Earthlife Africa Cape Town. "Nuclear energy is not an option for South Africa; the minister has surely overlooked many environmental and human health safety issues which entail great amounts of costs." The Minister is surely not taking seriously the global movement towards renewable energy and the fact that very few financing institutions that are interested in funding nuclear energy and some have allocated very little resources to fund such unsustainable projects. At most, the Minister is not seriously taking into consideration what is in the best interest of South African public, the right to clean and safe environment. This, if with nuclear energy will definitely be not clean let alone safe. South Africa has an overabundance of renewable energy resources, these resources have not been exploited to the fullest and resources allocated to research and development of renewable energy resources have been very much on small scale and very minimum. Government is failing to see the economic growth potential of renewables particularly in addressing jobs and small business development. "It is about time for government to stop narrowly focusing on outdated technology, and to realise that the Renewable Energy Resources are viable in everyway possible, looking at it in all aspects be it the socio-economic potential, human and environment health safety as well as the technical potential, " maintained Mimi. Sibusiso Mimi Earthlife Africa Cape Town 0724941395 Liz McDaid Earthlife Africa Cape Town 082 731 5643 ?? |
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