Eskom’s proposed Thyspunt nuclear power station, a 5,200 MW facility earmarked for roughly 250 hectares near St Francis Bay in the Eastern Cape’s Kouga Municipality, has cleared the scoping phase of its environmental impact assessment, but remains far from an environmental green light. Written parliamentary replies published on 11 September 2026 confirm that the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) has accepted the final scoping report, while the environmental assessment practitioner is still conducting the specialist studies needed for the draft Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Report, which has not yet opened for public comment. Government cannot say when that phase will be completed.

A full scoping and EIA process ordinarily has a prescribed 300-day timeframe under the National Environmental Management Act 107 of 1998 (NEMA) EIA Regulations. Thyspunt’s application has already received two approved extensions, pushing it well beyond that ordinary window, with no confirmed completion date. Thyspunt was identified as the preferred site over the alternative Bantamsklip location in the Western Cape, in part because Eskom already owns the land and it sits closer to existing transmission infrastructure. The proposed facility would have a design life of around 60 years, potentially extending to 80.

For a project of this scale and duration, sited on a sensitive stretch of coastline, clearing scoping is only the opening stage of a far more demanding environmental and regulatory undertaking.

The Process So Far

The public participation record to date is substantial: government recorded 41 engagements during the pre-application and scoping stages, comprising two virtual information sessions, eight stakeholder meetings, twelve public meetings, eighteen focus groups and one meeting with the DFFE, with 2,008 recorded attendances across the public and focus-group meetings. Sessions were held across St Francis Bay, Oyster Bay, Humansdorp, Jeffreys Bay and Gqeberha, with additional sessions in the Western Cape given Bantamsklip’s status as the alternative site.

Residents raised concerns spanning nuclear safety, marine ecology and fisheries, cultural heritage, construction impacts, the adequacy of public participation itself, and the project’s broader social and economic effects. Government has indicated these issues have been placed within the scope of specialist studies now under way for the EIA phase, covering marine ecology, freshwater supply, transport, tourism, health, climate change, radiological effects, waste transport, heritage, noise and economic impact, among other fields. Separately, Eskom has been engaging Khoisan traditional leaders on the proposed Nuclear Build Programme at Thyspunt, reflecting the site’s heritage sensitivity.

Kouga Municipality has also flagged a distinct concern: an estimated 10,000-strong construction workforce would strain municipal water, sanitation, electricity and refuse removal infrastructure well beyond current capacity. Eskom has said these aspects are being evaluated alongside the environmental specialist studies and that mitigation measures will be developed with the relevant authorities and municipalities should the project proceed.

Key Environmental Challenges

Several distinct categories of environmental risk will need to be substantively resolved, not merely catalogued, before Thyspunt could realistically proceed –

• Marine ecology and coastal water use: a nuclear facility of this scale requires substantial seawater cooling, with intake and discharge systems that carry a real risk of thermal plume effects, and entrainment or impingement of marine organisms, on a coastline supporting significant fisheries. This engages both water use licensing under the National Water Act 36 of 1998 (NWA) and coastal water discharge requirements under the Integrated Coastal Management Act 24 of 2008 (ICMA), in addition to the NEMA EIA itself;
• Radiological and nuclear safety risk assessment: nuclear-specific risk, seismic and geotechnical stability, meteorological dispersion modelling, population density and emergency planning zones, falls to be assessed under the National Nuclear Regulator Act 47 of 1999 (NNRA), through a distinct site suitability and licensing process run by the National Nuclear Regulator (NNR), separately from, but in parallel with, the NEMA EIA;
• Freshwater supply in an already constrained coastal system: construction and operational water demand for a project of this scale will compete with existing municipal and agricultural users in a water-stressed coastal municipality, requiring careful integration between the project’s NWA water use licence and the local catchment’s broader water resource planning;
• Cumulative pressure on municipal infrastructure from the construction workforce: Kouga Municipality’s concerns about water, sanitation, electricity and refuse removal capacity are, at heart, a cumulative impact issue, one that a rigorous EIA should capture through a dedicated socio-economic and services impact assessment, rather than leaving municipalities to manage the consequences through informal, non-binding arrangements with Eskom;
• Heritage and cultural resources: Eskom’s engagement with Khoisan traditional leaders reflects the obligations imposed by the National Heritage Resources Act 25 of 1999 (NHRA), which requires a heritage impact assessment and genuine consultation with affected traditional and cultural communities, particularly significant along a coastline with known archaeological sensitivity; and
• Long-duration environmental liability: a facility with a 60 to 80 year design life carries decommissioning and nuclear waste management obligations, spent fuel handling, low and intermediate-level waste disposal, and eventual site decommissioning, that must be planned and financially provided for now, at the licensing stage, rather than deferred to a future generation of regulators and operators.

The Proper Regulatory Requirements

For Thyspunt to proceed lawfully, several distinct authorisation tracks must each be satisfied –

• A full Scoping and EIA process under NEMA, with environmental authorisation issued by the DFFE as competent authority, given the national significance of a nuclear-generation listed activity;
• A nuclear installation licence under the NNRA, issued in phases, siting, construction and operation, each requiring a comprehensive safety case and site suitability report distinct from the NEMA process;
• Water use authorisation and a coastal water discharge permit under the NWA and ICMA for the seawater cooling system and any associated marine discharge;
• A heritage impact assessment and consultation process under the NHRA, including specific, direct engagement with affected traditional and Khoisan communities as recognised knowledge holders, not merely notification; and
• Meaningful public participation that meets a substantive, not merely a procedural, standard, consistent with the standard set out by the Constitutional Court in the Wild Coast exploration right litigation earlier this year: the issues actually raised by affected communities, nuclear safety, marine ecology, heritage, must be genuinely addressed within the specialist studies, not simply logged as having been mentioned at a public meeting.

Practical Considerations For Stakeholders

As the specialist studies for the draft EIA proceed, several practical points are worth attention –

• Eskom should ensure the specialist baseline studies remain defensible however long the process extends, since a process that has already outrun its statutory 300-day timeframe risks producing baseline data that is stale by the time an authorisation, if granted, is actually relied upon;
• Kouga Municipality and other organs of state should formally register infrastructure capacity constraints as a cumulative impact issue within the EIA process itself, rather than relying on informal engagement with Eskom to resolve service delivery pressures after the fact;
• affected communities and heritage stakeholders should ensure their input is documented in a manner that would satisfy a court’s scrutiny of “meaningful consultation”, properly identified affected parties, accessible engagement, and direct participation rather than reliance on intermediaries, given the consequences that inadequate consultation has had for other major coastal energy projects;
• the NNR, NWA/ICMA and NHRA authorisation tracks should be actively sequenced and coordinated with the NEMA EIA from the outset, to avoid the kind of fragmented, multi-year process already evident at the scoping stage; and
• all parties should monitor the validity period of any environmental authorisation eventually granted, given the mismatch between a statutory assessment process already well beyond its ordinary timeframe and a project with a multi-decade construction and operating horizon.

Conclusion

Clearing scoping is a procedural milestone, not an environmental verdict. The genuine environmental risk assessment for Thyspunt, marine ecology, radiological safety, freshwater supply, cumulative municipal impact, and heritage, is still to come in the EIA phase, and government itself cannot yet say when that phase will conclude. Given recent judicial emphasis on what meaningful consultation actually requires for major coastal and extractive projects, Thyspunt’s ultimate approvability will turn as much on the rigour and integrity of that process as on the underlying technical merits of the site itself.

How LexEco Can Assist

LexEco advises organs of state, municipalities and affected stakeholders on the environmental and regulatory dimensions of major energy infrastructure projects, including:

• advising on the NEMA scoping and EIA process for nuclear and other large-scale coastal energy infrastructure;
• coordinating parallel National Nuclear Regulator Act, National Water Act, Integrated Coastal Management Act and National Heritage Resources Act authorisation tracks with the underlying NEMA process;
• advising municipalities on registering cumulative and socio-economic impacts formally within EIA processes for major infrastructure projects;
• structuring public participation and heritage consultation processes that meet the meaningful consultation standard recently reinforced by the courts; and
• advising on environmental authorisation validity, lapsing and long-term decommissioning and financial provisioning obligations for long-life energy infrastructure.

As Thyspunt moves into its specialist study and draft EIA phase, the coming months will determine whether the project’s environmental case can withstand the scrutiny that its scale, coastal setting and multi-decade horizon demand. Contact LexEco to discuss your environmental and regulatory position on major infrastructure and energy projects.