NC to be home to nuclear plants
THE NORTHERN Cape is set to become home to two of South Africa’s controversial eight new planned nuclear power plants that will reportedly be constructed at a cost of between R400 billion and R1 trillion by 2030.
The Minister of Energy, Tina Joemat-Pettersson, has told Parliament that South Africa will start the nuclear build programme this year, in a bid to generate an additional 9 600 megawatts (MW) of electricity.
“We expect to present the outcome of this procurement process to Cabinet by year-end,” JoematPettersson said.
Meanwhile, South Africa and Russia have signed two Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) that are aimed at “strengthening efforts between the two countries in the field of nuclear energy,” the Department of Energy said last week.
The MoU were signed at the 7th BRICS Summit last week Wednesday between the Department of Energy and the Russian state-owned company, Rosatom.
The department last week announced that that the new nuclear sites would potentially be in the Eastern Cape, Northern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
It is believed that the two sites in the Province are Brazil, near Kleinzee, and Schulpfontein near Hondeklip Bay, both being two coastal sites in the Namaqua District.
The DA has reacted strongly to a media briefing by the Energy Department (DoE) and the South African Nuclear Energy Corpora- tion (Necsa), saying that the “socalled status update” on the Nuclear New Build Programme contained no new answers to pressing questions on the multi-trillion rand nuclear project.
“While this briefing was a perfect opportunity for government to dispel widely-held public opinion that South Africa’s largest-ever procurement deal is shrouded in secrecy and unfolding behind closed doors, today saw nothing more than restatements of the same old rhetoric with nothing new to add. The procurement process for this nuclear project remains highly secretive, procedurally backward and not beyond reproach. The South African public is still in the dark as to how much the deal will cost and who will be paying for it,” the DA said in a statement.
While two of the planned nuclear plants are expected to be constructed in the Northern Cape, it is also expected that waste from the nuclear plants across the country will also make its way to the Province because it is home to South Africa’s only radioactive waste disposal facility.
The Vaalputs Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility, operated by Necsa, is located about 100 kilometres south-east of Springbok, covering an area of approximately 10 000 hectares.
About 1 000 hectare-area is occupied by sites developed for low and intermediate-level waste, an interim spent nuclear fuel storage facility, housing, roads, power lines and an airstrip.
After nearly 30 years of storing waste at Vaalputs, the site is reportedly less than 10 percent full.
The site will apparently be decommissioned in 2035 and will then be actively guarded for another 100 years, passively guarded for 200 years and only then, 300 years after decommissioning, be released for unrestricted use.