The civil rights organisation AfriForum’s lofty plans to give South Africans more room to cushion the blow of a deepening energy crisis is doable but is worth a king’s ransom, warned outgoing Eskom boss André de Ruyter.
The kind of reactor proposed by AfriForum, which could fit in the back of a Isuzu flat-bed truck, is capable of meeting the residential power needs of a town or city for four decades.
But, De Ruyter warned, there’s a lot of red tape involved.
“Nuclear is a long-term capital intensive investment, I am sure that AfriForum will consider this, as well as stringent licensing and regulatory matters,” De Ruyter told Weekend Argus yesterday.
This follows AfriForum’s announcement of the first leg of its three-phase plan to help solve the energy crisis in the country.
The overall plan is known as Project AfriEnergy, said Johan Kruger, the organisation’s head of community sustainability.
“In phase one there’s a facilitation of knowledge regarding basic principles of solar energy and we are making available to the public and to our members quality and accredited installers of solar energy as well as quality products,” said Kruger.
“We are also looking at finance options to ensure that we do our bit to facilitate what is already available immediately,” he said.
Phase one also involves ongoing court actions against the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) which announced a 18.65% electricity increase for Eskom consumers earlier this month.
During phase two, Kruger said, towns, cities and communities must be helped to put pressure on local governments to free them from electricity sold by municipalities.
“We are working on developing blueprints for municipalities for existing successes such as the ones in Mafube Municipality in the Free State.
“This is where solar energy is so far being implemented on a 25-year period contract with a private role player -- this is something that should be duplicated,” he said.
A private company Rural Free State successfully took over the management of electricity in four towns 10 years ago.
Phase three is their long-term phase of the plan.
“This is where the possibilities of nuclear power and the deployment of nuclear energy solutions are looked at. We will look at the production of the nuclear pebble bed modular reactors that is already being developed in the United States and already operative in China,” he said.
Energy expert Nick Hedley said small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) have been in the works for a long time, but commercialising them remained a challenge.
“AfriForum is possibly being over ambitious – but at least they’re the ones taking on the risk, rather than the government, which includes taxpayers,” said Hedley.
“If it works out, good for them, but a cheaper and faster solution would be to set up and scale a solar, wind and battery storage organisation.
“AfriForum is banking on unproven tech so it would be taking financial risk. But if it works out, great. We need all the power we can get. It is, however, unclear whether they would get approval to even start on a nuclear project since nuclear/uranium is highly regulated,“ he said.
Nuclear physicist Dr Kelvin Kemm said the AfriEnergy project will be a collaboration between scientists and engineers assisted with the support of organisations like AfriForum.
“Stratek Global in Pretoria is ready to start a SMR reactor now,” said Kemm.
Eskom extended the life of its Koeberg nuclear power station in a bid to alleviate the crisis.
“As far as nuclear is concerned, Eskom’s point of view is that nuclear is a key component of the energy mix going forward,” said De Ruyter.
“The life extension of Koeberg by a further 20 years is a key element of this strategy, but we’re also keeping a close eye on small modular reactors, which will be an exciting opportunity if successfully commercialised abroad,” he said.
Weekend Argus