[miningmx.com] — SOUTH Africa will soon have to make a decision over whether to build the country’s next nuclear power station, Energy Minister Dipuo Peters said on Tuesday.
However, the country’s nuclear power programme would also include a supply chain for nuclear fuel. For this, a uranium converter plant and a uranium enrichment plant would have to be constructed, Peters said at the Africa Energy Indaba in Sandton.
“Obtaining nuclear power fuel is a key question, and Government is focusing particularly on obtaining sources of uranium, the development of a uranium converter plant, a uranium enrichment plant and a plant for manufacturing nuclear fuel,’ she said.
The process should have been started last year already, but after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan it was important for the government “to go back to the drawing board and take another look at matters concerning safety, and especially at issues relating to the construction design’, Peters said.
“When we had learned what we could from the lessons of Fukushima, we realised it was not so much a matter of the technology used, but the engineering services used in a nuclear plant,’ she said.
“The fact that we weren’t able to reach a decision last year means that our programme is behind schedule. However, the first units must be in operation by 2024,’ she added.
The initial date in the national resources plan is 2023. In terms of this, the country must be generating about 9,600MW of electricity at nuclear power stations by 2030 – which means that at least two nuclear power stations must be completed by 2030.
Peters pointed out that the country has a serious shortage of skills for a nuclear power industry.
“It’s clear that we will have to develop a strategy to obtain the skills to support the entire nuclear power programme.
“This includes skills in the construction of plants, the operation of a nuclear power plant, regulatory skills, decommissioning skills and the management of radioactive nuclear waste,’ she said.
The government approved the nuclear power protocol in June 2003. The long-term vision in terms of this policy is to become internationally competitive in the design, application and manufacturing of top nuclear power systems.
“The intention is to lead the country’s energy mix away from the almost exclusive dependence on coal because of the need to reduce the country’s carbon footprint,’ Peters said.
– Sake24
