South African state electricity company Eskom is reevaluating two sites to host the country’s third nuclear power plant, having previously dismissed both for an earlier facility. The two potential sites are Thyspunt, on the Eastern Cape coast, and Bantamsklip, near Dyer Island in the Western Cape, home to a significant, but declining colony of critically endangered African penguins (Spheniscus demersus). “Bantamsklip is a globally unique coastal environment with extremely high ecological value, and the risks from infrastructure of this scale remain unacceptable,” Wilfred Chivell, founder of the nonprofit Dyer Island Conservation Trust, told Mongabay by email. South Africa’s first nuclear power plant, the 1,860-megawatt Koeberg facility, has been running since 1984 and supplies roughly 4% of the country’s electricity. Discussions for a second nuclear plant began in the mid-2000s, identifying Thyspunt, Bantamsklip and Duynefontein, near Koeberg, as potential locations. After years of legal challenges over coastal ecology, seismic risks, and heritage impacts concerns, in August 2025 Duynefontein was upheld as the site for the 4,000-MW second plant. Eskom has now initiated an environment impact assessment for its third nuclear facility, with a capacity of 5,200 MW. An Eskom spokesperson told Mongabay by email that the EIA is for Thyspunt, with Bantamsklip being evaluated as an alternative site, “in line with EIA regulations that require consideration of alternatives.” “This will be a new EIA application and lessons learnt from the previous application will be taken into account by the specialists,” they said. South African news agency GroundUp reported that during the…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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