SA to have nuclear power by 2023

[miningmx.com] – SOUTH Africa would add fresh nuclear power capacity to the country’s national grid by 2023 in time to replace the retirement of coal-fired power owned by Eskom, said President Jacob Zuma in his State of the Nation Address (SONA).

Zuma said that the government was exploring the procurement of some 9,600MW of nuclear power supply with inter-governmental agreements signed with five countries including the US, South Korea, Russia, France and China.

“All these countries will be engaged in a fair, transparent, and competitive procurement process to select strategic partner to undertake the nuclear build programme,” said Zuma. “Our target is to connect to first nuclear unit by 2023 just in time for Eskom to retire part of its ageing power plant,” he said.

Commenting on the mining sector, Zuma said that the ministerial framework agreement, established to provide rules for engagement on mining issues between employers, government and unions, had established stability and optimism in the mining sector which was “the backbone of our economy”.

Zuma also spent time discussing the impact of economic assistance to former mining towns saying some R1.3bn would be deployed to uplift communities in the provinces including the Gauteng, Limpopo, Free State and Mpumalanga provinces.

He briefly commented on the decision to refer back to the National Assembly the Mineral & Petroleum Resources Amendment Bill for further discussion, but said steps had been taken to improve the application process for licences by making it a “one stop shop”.

Zuma also said he would extend the work of Operation Phakisa which committed R9.2bn to oil and gas exploration in Saldhana to the beneficiation of mining without providing more details of what this entailed.