Nuclear power on my doorstep?

A bad flood in August 2006 washed away the small bridge at the intersection of Kragga Kamma Road and Circular Drive. Temporary repairs were done while planning, preparations and even some private properties were purchased so that a better bridge and intersection can be built. On site work eventually started late last year and since then work has been very intense. But driving past there every day is leaving me very confused. I just cannot understand what they are trying to achieve.

To share my confusion I stopped and took some pictures today to put on this blog. Circular drive intersects Kragga Kama Road from the East. A small river runs under Kragga Kamma Road from West to East on the North side of Circular Drive. The first photo below was taken from the West side of Kragga Kamma Road, looking South. In the background you can see Kragga Kamma Road extending to the South-West.


This photo was taken from the East side of Kragga Kamma Road, looking South. The cars in the background are coming along Circular Drive.


The construction workers have been excavating the low ground and building up the higher ground, clearing large areas around the intersection and, on occasion, moving the temporary road that the continuous traffic must use. All the while they have been making dozens of huge reinforced concrete structures that look like beams for supporting something very heavy. I have read that that the plan is to widen the road and make a 'slip roads' for traffic turning left - but it seems to me that the work being done exceeds that requirement.

Even if they are catering for another bad flood, the bridge being built looks much too big. For a while I was optomistic and thought they were building an underpass for traffic turning right. But my current thought, considering the huge amount of rate-payers money that is obviously going into this work, and of the general appearance of the site, is that, at last, this is Alec Irwin's promise of a Pebble Bed Nuclear Power Station to solve Eskom's power shortage. I hope it is.