SA’s new power partners on the agenda

THE PROCESS to determine who will be South Africa’s strategic partner in the bid to generate almost a quarter of the country’s energy needs from nuclear power plants will start within the next month.

At a press conference in Durban yesterday, the energy department’s deputy director general for nuclear energy, Zizamele Mbambo, revealed that the process to acquire more nuclear plants would fall under the department and not the country’s troubled energy utility, Eskom.

Mbambo said that by the end of the financial year end in February, a decision would have been made on which country or countries would be South Africa’s strategic partners to help it achieve its aim of supplying 23 percent of its energy needs from six nuclear power plants by 2030.

The process to determine who would be the strategic partner would begin later this month, or early next month.

Mbambo said that although the country had numerous deals and agreements to train people in places like Russia, China, South Korea and France, no final decision had yet been made and bidding had yet to start. “The procurement process has not been made. It will begin in the second quarter of this (financial) year.”

The government hoped to have the first reactor going online in 2023 and Mbambo was confident that the government would meet its target.

Mbambo announced that 50 people had been sent to China for “nuclear training” while Russia had offered 10 new scholarships for a Master’s degree in nuclear technology. Students were also being trained in South Korea while France announced a programme offering 14 bursaries to people from disadvantaged backgrounds. He said intergovernmental agreements (IGAs) had been signed with South Korea, China, Russia, France and the US while there were negotiations to sign agreements with Canada and Japan.

Mbambo said these countries had expressed an interest in South Africa’s “nuclear new build programme”.

“Each one of these IGAs lays the foundation for co-operation, trade and exchange of nuclear technology as well as procurement.”

Phumzile Tshelane, chief executive of the SA Nuclear Energy Corporation, said that no decision had been taken on how to deal with nuclear waste.

Spent nuclear fuel could currently be sent for reprocessing or for storage.

The are currently only three countries that have the ability to reprocess spent nuclear fuel, he said. These were France, the US and Japan.