Skip to main content

South Africa to Build Second Nuclear Power Plant

By Eric McErlain
Yesterday in Cape Town, South African Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin announced that the nation would soon build a second nuclear power plant, and that the decision on a "preferred bidder" would take place before the end of the first quarter of this year. The new plant will be rated at 1,000 MWe.

Fans of the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor shouldn't get excited, as the new plant will be of the current Generation III+ variety currently being built around the world. Though the exact site of the new reactor has yet to be determined, Erwin indicated it would be in one of the Cape provinces that have been hit hard by rolling blackouts.

In conjunction with Erwin's announcement, both he and the nation's energy minister declared uranium to be a "strategic mineral," meaning...
"In this regard," said Mr Erwin today, "we are developing a uranium mining and beneficiation strategy."

Such a strategy would enable South Africa to "beneficiate" - add value to - the raw material of uranium rather than to import the enriched fuel, the raw material for which it has in abundance.

This would be more cost-effective for South Africa, Minerals and Energy Minister Bulelwa Sonjica told BuaNews today, "so we would beneficiate our own mineral".

Declaring uranium a strategic mineral, she added, would lead to more controls over its production and exportation to ensure that South Africa has adequate reserves of the mineral in years to come.

"We can't export uranium when we want to embark on a nuclear programme," she said.

"We want to ensure that all the time, when we need it, we have reserves in store."

That would be strategic way of dealing with it, she said, adding that there would be limitations on the export of uranium.

"We'll be managing it very carefully," Ms Sonjica said.
You'll recall that we first reported this possibility last August. Separately, Eskom announced a number of renewable energy projects for the Cape totalling about 350MWe in capacity.
Labels:

Comments

Rod Adams said…
Here is a prediction - Westinghouse will win the contract for the second conventional nuclear power plant in South Africa with a sale of an AP-1000.

Any takers for a wager?
February 14, 2007 at 10:42 PM
Matthew66 said…
My bet is that Areva (nee Framatome) will get the project, as it did with Koeberg. That is assuming that there are sufficient operational similarities between the two 900 MW units at Koeberg and the 1600 MW EPR Areva now markets to provide operational synergies.

Fortunately for the South Africans, there are enough vendors competing for business that they are likely to get a very good deal.
February 16, 2007 at 1:12 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wednesday Update

By
From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fluor Invests in NuScale

By
You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap...
1 comment
Read more

Activists' Claims Distort Facts about Advanced Reactor Design

By
Below is from our rapid response team . Yesterday, regional anti-nuclear organizations asked federal nuclear energy regulators to launch an investigation into what it claims are “newly identified flaws” in Westinghouse’s advanced reactor design, the AP1000. During a teleconference releasing a report on the subject, participants urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend license reviews of proposed AP1000 reactors. In its news release, even the groups making these allegations provide conflicting information on its findings. In one instance, the groups cite “dozens of corrosion holes” at reactor vessels and in another says that eight holes have been documented. In all cases, there is another containment mechanism that would provide a barrier to radiation release. Below, we examine why these claims are unwarranted and why the AP1000 design certification process should continue as designated by the NRC. Myth: In the AP1000 reactor design, the gap between the shield bu...
23 comments
Read more