New IRP to allow greater nuclear component

[miningmx.com] – AN updated version of the South African government’s Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) – a policy document which sets down how the country’s future energy needs will be supplied – will allow a greater contribution from nuclear, said BDLive citing government officials.

The newspaper said the motivation for including a greater proportion of future energy supply to be from nuclear sources was to in order to comply with global climate change negotiations held in 2009.

The energy department’s deputy director-general, Ompi Aphane, told BDLive that the IRP “… will take into account the latest demand projections; complete an update on cost assumptions and also take cognisance of determinations already made by the energy minister under the Electricity Regulation Act”.

An updated version of the IRP, first written in 2010, was supplied in 2013 but never adopted by the Cabinet. BDLive said it was widely believed that the reason the 2013 version was shelved was that it downgraded the role of nuclear energy.

Industry experts, as well as the South African government’s own National Development Plan, has warned against the use of nuclear energy owing to its cost.

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