Nuclear Ping Pong: The DA’s opposition to nuclear energy is detrimental to South Africa's energy security
Dr Kelvin Kemm
So, we now see that the Energy Minister, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, has delayed the issuing of the international notice for countries to show interest in South Africa's new nuclear build.
He has removed the Government Gazette notice of the intention to proceed, so as to provide him with more time for public participation, as demanded by the Democratic Alliance and their anti-nuclear activist collaborators.
Of course, there is absolutely no doubt that the public participation process should be done correctly, and comprehensively.
But it is also absolutely essential that the same process should be followed for wind and solar projects.
However, what we actually tend to experience, in reality, is that the extreme greens recently appealed for a relaxation of the Environmental Impact Assessment process for solar installations, supposedly ‘to get electricity to the people rapidly.’
However, it is the same people who block nuclear electricity.
Had they not blocked the nuclear procurement process of a decade ago, we probably would never have had load-shedding.
Meantime, the country spent the same amount of money on wind and solar installations as an entire Koeberg-size nuclear power station would have cost.
The result has been intermittent and unreliable electricity that is actually very expensive, by the time it is gets delivered from Skilpadvrekvandors in the far Northern Cape to the Gauteng consumer.
In contrast, Koeberg is reliably providing South Africa’s cheapest electricity, by far. Cape Town is one of the few cities in the world that is totally nuclear powered.
One of the two reactors at Koeberg has just been through a significant upgrade, and the other one should be done with its upgrade before Christmas.
Koeberg will then be good for another 40 years, although they have only applied for a 20-year licence renewal.
Make no mistake, South Africa needs nuclear. The sooner the better.
The world doubled its electricity consumption during the last 25 years. Currently, the trend is to double again, but in less than 25 years.
So, South Africa's target should be to double total electricity production, as soon as possible. Yes, double.
The only source of electricity that South Africa has which can provide 100% increase, fast, is nuclear.
Think about it.
But Koeberg-size reactors need to be on the coastline, to use sea water for system cooling.
This is why five new nuclear sites were purchased, years ago, on the coastlines of the Eastern Cape, Western Cape, and Northern Cape.
All of them need big reactors on them, as soon as possible.
However, we also need nuclear electricity far inland, in the Free State goldfields, at Secunda, and at Musina, as examples.
So, thirty years ago, South Africa became the first country in the world to start developing a Small Modular Reactor (SMR) which does not need a large body of water, and is about 5% to 10% the size of Koeberg.
We need new Koeberg's, and a fleet of SMR’s as well.
This is like a building contractor owning a five-ton truck and a bakkie. You don't use them for the same thing.
Right now, South Africa has an SMR reactor ready to build. It is the HTMR-100, which produces 35 MW of electricity.
The best approach is to build, say, four reactors, or even 10 reactors, on a single site, all running off one control room.
We designed the system that way, so that you can add additional reactors at a pace that is applicable.
Eight such reactors will supply the entire Tshwane Municipality.
That means Centurion, Pretoria, out to Bronkhorstspruit, and up the N1 to Onderstepoort.
Nuclear is the cleanest, greenest, cheapest and safest electricity which exists.
During normal operation absolutely nothing is emitted from a nuclear power plant.
Meanwhile, the green solar enthusiasts are calling on government to build an additional 14 000 km of high-voltage transmission lines, so that they can actually move the solar electricity from the far Northern Cape to Gauteng.
But, wait for it, the huge cost of those power lines will not be counted as ‘solar cost.’
Nooo, the costs will be added onto all your electricity bills, as some sort of incidental expenditure.
An additional point of interest is that for the amount of money that the powerlines will cost, we can build over 50 of our HTMR-100 reactors.
We could take the reactors to anywhere you like in the country. So, we don't need all those expensive power lines.
Years ago, the concept of cell phones came about.
They work using many cells, looking something like the honeycomb in a beehive.
If you talk within one cell, the signal moves around, controlled by a master point in that cell.
But if you ride your environmentally-friendly bicycle over a cell boundary into the next cell, then the signal control is passed to the control point in the next cell.
With an HTMR-100 nuclear reactor, one can effectively plan a system of ‘cells of electricity production.’
You can place a reactor wherever you like, owned by anybody you like.
For example, it is quite feasible for a Province, a Municipality, a private company, or some other business collective, to own their own reactors, within a financial system such as the existing IPP system.
It is even possible to have a small mini-grid of electricity that is not at all connected to the National Grid, but powers only, say, a two kilometre or five kilometre diameter area.
This could be privately owned and operated, independent of the national electricity supply, and price. So, one could have an SMR system connected to SASOL, or near a major railway junction, or near a gold mine.
Or, for that matter, in an agricultural community. A number of agricultural groupings have already enquired about having their own nuclear reactor. It is totally feasible.
A number of African countries have also enquired, from far across Africa.
There have also been enquiries from as far afield as the Middle East, Ireland, Australia and Canada. The export potential is enormous.
The potential addition to the GDP of the nation is massive. The DA and their anti-nuclear activist buddies are blocking access to electricity for many rural households, plus putting brakes on the expansion of South Africa's industry.
It is right now that major international investors are contemplating whether to build expansions to their factories, or to build new factories, in South Africa, or rather to take them somewhere else, such as Korea or Brazil.
It is now that they're looking at the signals which indicate that in half a dozen years’ time a sizeable and stable electricity supply will be available.
Incidentally, we can build an entire new Koeberg in five years, not the 10 to 15 years that the anti-nuclear Sandal Brigade keep quoting.
But we cannot afford years of intentional delay to be added on.
It really is time that the Sandal Brigade pulled their socks up.
Is the DA really doing this ‘for the people’ or is it all for their own image and political advantage?
In the spirit of the GNU, let us rather collaborate and make the whole nuclear thing work.
Of course we expect to see that the DA insists that the whole proposed 14 000 kilometres of power lines is put through the same public participation process, so as to prove their sentiment of doing it all for ‘public interest.’
*** Dr Kelvin Kemm is a nuclear physicist and is Chairman of Stratek Global, a nuclear project management company based in Pretoria. He is past Chairman of Necsa. kelvin.kemm@stratekglobal.com | www.stratekglobal.com
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.
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