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Nuclear power must come, and fast.
South Africa needs it urgently, just as the rest of the world does.
And, if we play our cards right, in the process of getting it we could become suppliers to other countries. We could create about 400 000 jobs.
This is the view of Mohamed Madhi, chairperson of the South African branch of Areva, the French nuclear power company.
Last week Madhi invited a group of energy journalists to Areva's new Sandton offices. It was not to make important announcements, but to tell the world in a tactful way that his company had recently had considerable contact with senior government representatives.
Also, that he had good reason to believe announcements on nuclear power stations could be expected soon in the course of 2010 - and perhaps even in the first half.
If you look beyond the two coal-fired power stations, Medupi and Kusile, Eskom is building, you realise that Madhi has a good point. In fact, South Africa has no alternative.
To meet our growing needs, the country has to double its power-generating capacity from the current 34 000MW by 2025.
This will cost about R1 300bn. At least half of this will have to be generated by nuclear energy if we want to remain within environmental limits at all.
This implies that a fleet of 12 nuclear power stations needs to be built in South Africa.
No solution
No, renewable electricity is not a solution. Renewable electricity is good for peak demand needs, but not for baseline electricity.
Between 30% and 35% of the expense of a coal-fired power station is the cost of raw fuel (coal), but at a nuclear power plant this is between 5% and 7% - which naturally makes the funding of nuclear power generation much more stable and predictable.
A day or two before Madhi's remarks, President Barack Obama of the United States announced in Washington that the American federal government was issuing loan guarantees to the value of $8.33bn to Southern Co for the construction of two nuclear facilities in Atlanta.
The two Westinghouse-designed reactors have to be operational by 2016 and 2017.
These are the first nuclear power stations to be built in the US in 20 years. They will head the construction of 10 new nuclear power stations in the US alone, according to Steven Chu, the federal energy secretary.
Analysts say this has a threefold purpose: to provide clean electricity for the US against the backdrop of ever-increasing environmental pressure, to create jobs in the US and to garner Republican support for the climate legislation Democrats are struggling to get through Congress.
The United States has the largest fleet of nuclear power stations in the world - 104 of the 439 reactors operating globally - but it is falling behind. Another 36 reactors are under construction, with a further 316 on the drawing board.
The nuclear power industry has the ability to stimulate a whole new industry in South Africa. A couple of emerging countries are heading for the starting block in the race to become nuclear exporters.
These include China, Brazil, the United Arab Emirates and - just possibly - South Africa.
The country that leads the race and does it on a satisfactory scale will enjoy two major benefits: it will develop new skills and expertise in a local industry which would give the economy an injection and, secondly, it would be able to use those skills to establish a vigorous export industry, says Madhi.
Obama's announcement is the latest in a global revival for nuclear energy. It's quite obvious that the worldwide demand for nuclear products and services will increase.
Irony
It's ironic that Barbara Hogan, Minister of Public Enterprises, last week indicated that the government would cease its support of the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) programme.
And it is tragic that some 800 posts for experts in this highly specialised field have been done away with and that these people will probably leave South Africa.
Or is it perhaps an indication that the government is going to resuscitate the country's nuclear energy programme, which Eskom terminated in late 2008 because it simply could not finance it?
Perhaps this could happen in partnership with Areva or Westinghouse - the world's two designers of nuclear power stations - rather than the untested PBMR.
Over many years South Africa has made enormous investments in expertise and research in the nuclear field.
In 2008 Hogan's predecessor, Alec Erwin, developed a vision of a nuclear manufacturing industry, but this was aimed at expanding the PBMR into an energy-producing business plan.
It now seems that this is not feasible, but setting up such an industry in partnership with, and under licence from, Areva or Westinghouse, or perhaps both, could set the country on a new future tack.
Four known sites have already been identified as suitable locations for nuclear power stations. One is at Koeberg. To tell the truth, Koeberg was built with this in mind.
The other three are St Francis Bay, Jeffreys Bay and Pearly Beach.
Nuclear power stations are generally built along coastlines, which facilitates the cooling. They can be built inland, but for South Africa with its inland water scarcity, coastal facilities make more sense.
South African coal-fired power stations are situated inland because they need to be close to coal reserves. But in transmission from Mpumalanga to coastal cities, between 10% and 15% of the generated electricity is lost.
- Fin24
