Across the globe, more nuclear power units are under construction today than at any other time in the last 25 years. This is happening despite the 2011 crisis in Japan at Fukushima. It is important to note the Fukushima crisis and resulting problems was not a result of a nuclear disaster, but rather a tsunami that laid waste to large parts of Japan and killed around 20,000 people.
At the start of 2015 there were 436 operating nuclear reactors across the globe. By year-end this had increased to 439, despite the closure of seven units during the year. The countries driving nuclear construction are largely in Asia, with China, at last count, building 30 new reactors to add to their fleet.
In South Africa, it’s clear that the government is intent on pressing ahead with a new nuclear build program. The Integrated Resource Plan calls for 9,600MW of nuclear power and this still seems to be the target for the new build. One reason seemingly being that since nuclear is an expensive and complicated industry; it would simply be more cost effective over the long term to invest in a fleet of reactors that can be supported by an underlying industry. If this should transpire, it will certainly lead to a boom in jobs across many sectors of industry.
The environment is another reason nuclear power is punted as an option for South Africa. At the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December, countries reached an agreement to hold the average global temperature increases to less than 2 degrees Celsius, compared to preindustrial levels. The targets agreed upon will require significant reductions in the global greenhouse gas emissions and one of the major areas targeted for reduction of carbon dioxide outputs would be energy generation. The bulk of the globe’s electricity is still generated by fossil fuels, with nuclear power supplying roughly 10% of global electricity. The use of nuclear power is recognized as being a means to achieve climate change targets.
Another serious question around South Africa’s energy future is the planned decommissioning of old power plants. By 2030, Eskom, by law, must close down 14,800MW of existing capacity, while Eskom’s new mega build projects will only add 10,932MW over the same period. These older plants are currently supplying a large part of South Africa’s baseload electricity. The country can ill afford to lose such a big part of its capacity and there is still no clear plan as to what will replace this baseload capacity. The role of renewables is limited; the availability of power output from renewable energy is still not comparable to that of fossil fuel or nuclear plants. Add into the mix the environmental considerations and there is only one option to replace old baseload with new baseload – nuclear.
The major constraint to a new nuclear build in South Africa is funding. Accurate estimates of what a 9,600MW fleet could cost are largely unavailable; they range between $45.4 billion and $68 billion. The only thing we know for sure is that is going to be very expensive. There are other concerns over safety, waste and the ability to run a corruption free and timeous build process.
However, there are also some benefits. The country cannot ignore the environmental issues and the need for a reliable baseload power system that can allow the economy to grow. The South African economy may be moving away from mining but there is no need to ignore the potential in the future of mining, as well as in added beneficiation. Reaching this potential would require a lot of electricity and of course, the more the economy grows, the greater the need for electricity.
Where will the first new plant be built? The Eastern Cape province still seems the most likely area. When will the first new reactor be built? The current economic downturn has given the country some breathing room and the pressure is off for now, but there can be little doubt that new construction could start within the next two years. Following that, the full fleet of 9,600MW could follow over the following 20 years. In addition, given government’s appetite for nuclear power, I would not be surprised if South Africa sees more than 9,600MW of nuclear power by 2050.
Is that a good thing? Time will tell.
&nbsp;
James-Brent Styan authored a book on the energy crisis called Blackout, The Eskom Crisis. It was published in 2015. He writes in his personal capacity.

The Good, Bad…  And expensive

Building nuclear power stations in South Africa could benefit other industries that are in dire need of a leg-up.
South Africa’s cabinet has kicked off the Nuclear New Build Programme (NNBP) to get an initial 9,600MW of nuclear power which, according to President Jacob Zuma and Finance Minster Pravin Gordhan, “will be built on a scale and at a rate the country can afford”.
The cost of obtaining this much power will be around $40 billion to $50 billion over 15 years.
Contrary to the view of naysayers, the nuclear power lifetime cost is lower than most technologies. It is also the leading global baseload renewable energy source, topped up with hydro, clean coal independent power producers (IPPs), wind and solar.
The Department of Energy’s strategy has been to engage with nuclear vendor countries, and not only nuclear power plant (NPP) original equipment manufacturers, as they did in the failed 2007 process. Agreements have now been signed with five nuclear vendor countries – France, Russia, South Korea, China and USA/Japan.
These countries are able to supply modern pressurized water reactor (PWR) NPP technology, funding, construction and localization development strategies. Some offer fuel supply and fuel waste management support. These partnerships will last 100 years if you consider the full cradle-to-grave lifecycle of the modern NPP.
Government intends following a transparent procurement process, which will be placed into the IPP Office. This office is currently responsible for the successful renewable energy, baseload coal, and gas to power IPP programs.
“Only once nuclear vendors had entered their bids would South Africa have an understanding of what are the different cost levels [and] what type of technology is available… So it’s going to be a year, or two, or more before we can definitely say how long, how much and over what period of time we are going to be managing this program,” says Gordhan.
The principle vendor countries, and their own domestic technology companies, will look to share risk through international alliances and to embed a strong local content into their offering. This will provide support and funding for broad-based black economic empowerment (BBBEE), the construction and manufacturing sectors, and black industrialists.
Such Sino-Franco partnerships have been successful in building the Taishan NPP in China and the Hinkley Point C NPP in Britain, so watch this space.
South Africa’s nuclear readiness and localisation is an important issue for the initial 9600MW and could range anywhere from 20% to 40%, depending on how advanced the country’s readiness strategy is and its intentions for developing a flourishing nuclear knowledge economy.
South Africa has a proud heritage in power generation construction across all the primary energy technologies, but is now coming off a 2010 construction boom, with a big coal build now rapidly tailing off. The country’s embattled construction sector will be challenged to prepare for a nuclear build program without a well-thought-out and structured national strategy. We need to keep the momentum gained for the foreseeable future.
An early dialogue between the engineering and construction fraternity, the manufacturing sector, government and labor is therefore crucial to devise an incorporated plan for the NNBP. This plan will need to give South Africa about five years to ready itself to ramp-up into the investment and localization of the NNBP and will have to be sustained for at least the following 10 years.
The potential is for over 20,000 construction jobs to be created and a similar amount in the manufacturing and supply to the NNBP. Without a plan, the opportunity will be lost to foreign jobs and higher imported content for the NNBP.
Many industry players could be activated when the NNBP is announced. Supporting infrastructures will be a great stimulus for the local communities near the selected NNBP sites in the Eastern and Western Cape provinces. Currently the local talent pool is small. Group Five and Lesedi Nuclear Services are the only private sector companies currently fully active in the nuclear industry.
In the public sector, the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (NECSA), Denel, Eskom and the National Nuclear Regulator (NNR) will have major roles in the establishment of the NNBP and in the supply to and execution of the projects.

Can Nuclear Power Up Other Industries?

Will the announced nuclear program energize South Africa’s manufacturing and construction?
My background is power engineering. Building power plants across Africa generates as many stories as they do megawatts. It is ironic that, in Africa’s most electrified economy, there are tales of powerless people and an economy running out of juice.
Eskom, South Africa’s national power generator, is cooking with gas (turbines) – at the cost of around $78 million a month – while grinding away at the late completion of the new 9,000MW Kusile and Medupi coal power plants. Medupi’s first 800MW unit is generating power and will be on commercial load in September, with up to 1,600MW coming onto the grid each year for the next five years.
Keep your gas cylinders full and your camping lights charged – there’s more to this story!
South Africa has a 40GW-headache to cure in the next 20 years. The first 10GW is merely to match current demand. Generation capacity is 40GW with only about 30GW available due to the UCLF (unplanned capacity loss factor) being high. The national demand is over 40GW as mines and smelters have shut down to help Eskom. Medupi and Kusile will merely tick this box.
The second 10GW is needed to replace the old coal plants before 2025. They have been run hard well beyond their time. The third 10GW is needed to attract investment for growth and the fourth 10GW is for reserve capacity to allow for maintenance.
Coal may be easier and cheaper, but it’s dirty stuff and our economy has to be environmentally attractive to foreign investment. Few investors will stump up if it will worsen their carbon footprint.
So, 40GW in the next 20 years! Simply put, double Eskom. It has to be greener than ever before too – no dirty coal. That means nuclear topped up with clean coal IPPs. Wind and solar may be very sexy but they don’t deliver the big base load power that we need.
Like it or not, nuclear is the leading renewable energy source and South Africa is in play on the global nuclear stage to procure 9,600MW of nuclear power.
Contrary to the naysayers, nuclear energy’s lifetime cost is lower than most technologies, it’s expensive at the start, but cheaper to run.
South Africa’s nuclear regulatory body has defined that only the safest technology will meet the environmental and safety specifications for any new build program.
Russia, France and China are likely frontrunners, but who has the better and safest kit and who can offer a compelling financial deal? That’s where technology, money, politics and common sense meet in a witches brew.
The International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review (INIR) sets the readiness criteria for building nuclear plants. A nuclear power plant is split into three main sections: The Nuclear Island, The Conventional Island (Turbine) and the Balance of Plant. South Africa is ready to manufacture and construct on the last two sections, which are similar to the local content of Medupi and Kusile, with some nuclear safety alignment.
The nuclear codes and quality standards take a quantum leap in the Nuclear Island and that is where the nuclear certified contractors like Group Five, Lesedi Nuclear Services and the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (NECSA) are qualified. The country’s industry will have to partner with the successful vendors to hone those skills, train a workforce and learn from the build program in Europe, China and Russia.
There’s a buzz again. Nuclear vendors expected a request for proposals in August with a preferred Nuclear Vendor Country announced by March. Next year will see tendering for the local manufacturing and construction sector, with contracts signed in 2017 and construction starting in 2018.
The capital expenditure for 9,600MW will be approximately $40 to $50 billion, plus government costs and interest on capital. All this leads to trillions being spent over 15 years. That’s a big number that will reignite local industry and a knowledge economy after the last seven years of power cut misery.
Could we “boom” again?
&nbsp;
Additional reporting from Des Muller, head of Group Five Nuclear Construction Services.

double or quit?

Ageneration of small-sized nuclear plants will revive Africa and give it all the energy it needs. This is the solution of nuclear physicist Kelvin Kemm. He is the CEO of Nuclear Africa and an old hand in the energy game.
“Three quarters of African countries can become nuclear countries within the next half a dozen years. I would advise they do it,” says Kemm.
They call them high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGR); a generation IV reactor that uses helium instead of water. It means that nuclear can produce energy without the need for large amounts of water to cool uranium pebble beds.
“Nuclear is the cleanest, safest and most reliable form of electricity. This is proven… work done at North West University has shown that nuclear power is cheaper than coal in South Africa, if you look at the lifetime cycle and you apply the same interest rates. What tends to happen is that in loans for coal you get a certain interest rate and then suddenly when you get a load for nuclear they up it, because suddenly it’s nuclear and it’s more risky. It isn’t more risky.”
Unlike South Africa’s 2,000MW-Koeberg Nuclear Power Plant, which was completed 30 years ago, the HTGR can be built a lot smaller at 100MW, according to Kemm.
“I am not advocating that a small African country tries to embark on a massive project, because those need to be on the coastline or on the side of very large lakes to utilize the water for cooling,” he says.
Nuclear projects loom large for South Africa. The government is at an advanced stage in its plans to build at least three plants that will produce 9,600MW by 2023.
“To my mind that’s not enough. We should be looking at 12,500MW,” says Kemm.
He believes that the waste produced by the plants is in safe hands.
“It is time for people to think and not get swept into the emotion in the press. The waste problem is not a technological problem, it is a public relations problem. The technical problem is solved. The public hasn’t been solved.”
Low and intermediate level waste from Koeberg – the gloves, paper or anything else that goes into a nuclear zone – is transported by road in steel and concrete containers to a remote disposal site at Vaalputs, 600 kilometers away in the Kalahari Desert.
High-level waste is stored on site in special pools equipped with high-density racking.
“High-level waste is spent fuel. They are balls, with uranium, that can kill in one minute. All the high-level waste that has come out of Koeberg for 30 years is still on the site. There is no legally determined thing to do with it. Only two countries in the world have a permanent plan. That is Sweden and Finland. They both dig underground tunnels, in very wet conditions, pump all the water out. Put in copper cylinders that are about a meter diameter and slide the fuel in and weld the cylinders shut. [They then] slide these cocoons down the tunnel. When the tunnel is full, they release the pumps and move up a level.”
“Their solution is to bury it in water logged tunnels. I would like to see South Africa be the first country to come up with a dry storage solution. You can very easily. South Africans are the best hole diggers in the world with a hundred years of mining to draw on.”
“Sometimes there is this offensive element where overseas people say, ‘they are only a country in Africa with African type standards and these are the same people that have never been here. How can they expect to run nuclear?’”
Kemm answers there is nothing in a reactor that South African scientists do not understand. After all, they’ve run a nuclear power station for 30 years without a hitch.

Nuclear  is the way

Will the announced nuclear program energize South Africa’s manufacturing and construction?
My background is power engineering. Building power plants across Africa generates as many stories as they do electricity. It is ironic that, in Africa’s most electrified economy, there are tales of powerless people and an economy running out of juice.
Eskom, South Africa’s national power generator, is cooking with gas (turbines) – at the cost of around $78 million a month – while grinding away at the late completion of the new 9,000MW Kusile and Medupi coal power plants. Medupi’s first 800MW unit is generating power and will be on commercial load in September, with up to 1,600MW coming onto the grid each year for the next five years.
Keep your gas cylinders full and your camping lights charged – there’s more to this story!
South Africa has a 40GW-headache to cure in the next 20 years. The first 10GW is merely to match current demand. Generation capacity is 40GW with only about 30GW available due to the UCLF (unplanned capacity loss factor) being high. The national demand is over 40GW as mines and smelters have shut down to help Eskom. Medupi and Kusile will merely tick this box.
The second 10GW is needed to replace the old coal plants before 2025. They have been run hard well beyond their time. The third 10GW is needed to attract investment for growth and the fourth 10GW is for reserve capacity to allow for maintenance.
Coal may be easier and cheaper, but it’s dirty stuff and our economy has to be environmentally attractive to foreign investment. Few investors will stump up if it will worsen their carbon footprint.
So, 40GW in the next 20 years! Simply put, double Eskom. It has to be greener than ever before too – no dirty coal. That means nuclear topped up with clean coal IPPs. Wind and solar may be very sexy but they don’t deliver the big base load power that we need.
Like it or not, nuclear is the leading renewable energy source and South Africa is in play on the global nuclear stage to procure 9,600MW of nuclear power.
Contrary to the naysayers, nuclear energy’s lifetime cost is lower than most technologies, it’s expensive at the start, but cheaper to run.
South Africa’s nuclear regulatory body has defined that only the safest technology will meet the environmental and safety specifications for any new build program.
Russia, France and China are likely frontrunners, but who has the better and safest kit and who can offer a compelling financial deal? That’s where technology, money, politics and common sense meet in a witches brew.
The International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review (INIR) sets the readiness criteria for building nuclear plants. A nuclear power plant is split into three main sections: The Nuclear Island, The Conventional Island (Turbine) and the Balance of Plant. South Africa is ready to manufacture and construct on the last two sections, which are similar to the local content on Medupi and Kusile, with some nuclear safety alignment.
The nuclear codes and quality standards take a quantum leap in the Nuclear Island and that is where the nuclear certified contractors like Group Five, Lesedi Nuclear Services and the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (NECSA) are qualified. The country’s industry will have to partner with the successful vendors to hone those skills, train a workforce and learn from the build program in Europe, China and Russia.
There’s a buzz again. Nuclear vendors expected a request for proposals in August with a preferred Nuclear Vendor Country announced by March. Next year will see tendering for the local manufacturing and construction sector, with contracts signed in 2017 and construction starting in 2018.
The capital expenditure for 9,600MW will be approximately $40 to $50 billion, plus government costs and interest on capital. All this leads to trillions being spent over 15 years. That’s a big number that will reignite local industry and a knowledge economy after the last seven years of misery.
Perhaps it will be “boom” again?
&nbsp;
Additional reporting from Des Muller, head of Group Five Nuclear Construction Services.

Tag: Nuclear

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Can Nuclear Power Up Other Industries?

double or quit?

Nuclear is the way

Double or quit?