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A MEDIA tour of Russia’s nuclear facilities a few months back felt more like the Amazing Race on steroids than a leisurely sight-seeing trip.
It has taken me a while to digest the journey I embarked on in September, partly because there is so much animosity towards nuclear in the media and partly because Russia’s ambitions in South Africa seem entangled with politics.
While I filed four reports (story 1, story 2, story 3, story 4) of the tour while in Russia, which revealed some telling viewpoints, I wanted to put together an online video mini-series providing a reflection of the trip (with exclusive footage inside secure facilities) with commentary from various sides of the nuclear debate.
Objectively navigating the dominant narrative of political suspicion and nuclear energy criticism is not easy. This was made even trickier because the tour was sponsored by Rosatom.
In recent months, Fin24 has published stories that give balanced viewpoints on nuclear energy and Rosatom's plans for South Africa: from energy policy expert Professor Steve Thomas, Russian environmentalist Vladimir Slivyak and Fossil Free SA's David le Page, who criticise the use of nuclear energy, to Rosatom's Viktor Polikarpov, who promoted his country's bid.
Inside Russia's nuclear inner circle
With this context in mind, a three-part series of the trip has now been published and can be viewed below, alongside a travel log of the tour:
WATCH: Entering the inner sanctum of a nuclear reactor vessel
The aim of the tour was to educate South African journalists, who have a heightened interest in Russia’s nuclear energy sector after it signed an intergovernmental agreement with South Africa in 2014. The agreement could land its state nuclear company Rosatom a contract to build three or four nuclear power stations between 2023 and 2030, which would generate 9 600 MW of electricity for SA.
While other countries have subsequently signed similar intergovernmental deals with SA, controversy was sparked in September 2014 when it was announced that Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson had signed an agreement with Russia. "This agreement opens up the door for South Africa to access Russian technologies, funding, infrastructure, and provides proper and solid platform for future extensive collaboration," she said at the time. Opposition parties said the deal was signed in secret and called for answers.
"The DA is extremely concerned over reports that [she] signed the latest agreement with Russia in secret and without the involvement of other departmental or diplomatic staff in attendance," Democratic Alliance MP Lance Greyling said in a statement at the time. Joemat-Pettersson and Rosatom have since attempted to challenge the secrecy and importance of the agreement, and Rosatom told Fin24 in Russia that it was a PR mistake.
WATCH: Where South Africa's reactors would be built if Russia wins the bid
The tour included four flights and two long-haul bus trips to visit the Rostov nuclear plant in the southern Russian city of Volgodonsk, a gruelling 80-hour round trip that certainly tested the journalists’ capabilities to function off little sleep.
A visit to the Rosatom welcome centre and the Atomenergomash manufacturing plant preceded a tight day’s visit to the impressive Rostov nuclear power plant, where experts fielded tough questions from safety to manufacturing capabilities. Back in my hotel room in Moscow, I somehow managed to send off this report at 03:00!
A meeting with the head of the National Research University in the morning highlighted the institution’s role in developing academic skills needed to run a nuclear power plant. If Russia wins the bid, South Africans will be spending a year in Moscow learning Russian before embarking on a four-year master’s degree in that language.
Just outside the magnificent Kremlin, an expo celebrating 70 years of atomic energy gave an eye-opening viewpoint of how Russia sees itself in the annals of history: A proud nation that developed nuclear energy to initially stave off America's atomic bomb threat (Russia believed the US would bomb them after Japan), and then was the first nation to use it for peaceful means, as nuclear energy.
Just like the over-sized Tsar Cannon built in 1586 that never fired its one-tonne cannon balls - but averted a war, the expo showed off a replica of its infamous atomic bomb - also called the Tsar - that the Soviet Union threatened to use against the US during the height of the Cold War – but never did.
With a sprint of sight-seeing of the mighty Kremin and the palatial metro (the best underground in the world!), the media tour group had an intriguing dinner with a top Rosatom executive – where more tough questions were answered (or partially answered) before jetting back to South Africa.
While the journey was informative, no Amazing Race trophy awaited us back home and the road towards nuclear energy remained unclear. At least I arrived home with no traces of radiation. I checked.
WATCH: Does South Africa need nuclear power?
