How will the minister of energy and electricity, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa’s, nuclear power plan for South Africa work?
This is one of the questions that have been on the lips of experts and the public since his statement early in July that South Africa will “attempt to build a nuclear power plant on a scale and speed that we can afford”.
According to Ramakgopa, the new government of national unity intended to soon obtain approval from The Treasury for building a 2 500MW new nuclear power plant.
An innovative and ingenious nuclear physicist and businessman from Pretoria, Dr Kelvin Kemm, believes a product from the Pretoria company Stratek Global has a place in the government’s plan.
Dr Kemm is a nuclear physicist and chairman of the company.
The company has produced a small modular reactor that will have the capacity to generate 100MW of heat or 35MW of electricity.
He is already in talks with the government to include this reactor on the plan.
According to Kemm, such a reactor has many advantages.
“Factory manufacturing part by part rather than being erected from scratch on a site is a big advantage. The site can therefore be prepared and the reactor can be driven in piece by piece,” explained Kemm.
Like conventional reactors, such reactors use nuclear fission technology and utilise the thermal energy it produces to generate electricity.
The team’s design uses helium as a coolant and graphite-coated spherical uranium oxycarbide tristructural isotropics as fuel.
Kemm said the nature of the fuel gives the reactor a high degree of safety.
Based on proven German technology, South Africa has been working on the modular pebble bed nuclear power reactor since 1993.
Its principles are the starting point for the Pretoria-designed product.
Kemm is also a former chairman of the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation, which was involved in the development of the pebble bed nuclear power reactor.
The project was provisionally put on ice in 2010 by politicians. Kemm and his team adapted the principles for their reactor.
“The fact that water is not needed as a coolant makes it ideal for particularly severely dry parts of our country,” said Kemm.
According to him, such reactors could result in a large niche market. He has received numerous inquiries from various countries.
However, Kemm is realistic as there has been opposition since the start of the development of small modular reactors, but the determined scientist does not let that stop him.
His dream comes with him from the 90s.
“Nuclear energy always faces significant challenges due to political obstacles, green propaganda and regulatory challenges,” he said.
He also believes that the electricity crisis could have been averted had nuclear building started in 2010 as planned.
At the time, predictions were already in place from the turn of the century that South Africa would already have to use reserves in 2007 to maintain the network.
But he said anti-nuclear greens sabotaged the nuclear developments at the time.
“Koeberg is a huge success. It is also full steam ahead for it as the National Nuclear Regulator gave Eskom the green light in mid-July to operate the nuclear power station for the next 20 years until 2044,” emphasised Kemm.
But if Koeberg is such a success, why is it taking so long for South Africa to build up nuclear power capacity?
Kemm has come a long way with the implementation of additional nuclear power to add to the electricity that the Koeberg nuclear power plant can provide to South Africa.
For him, South Africa has a proud history with nuclear power, and the country could have progressed much further if obstacles had not been placed in the way of the nuclear scientists.
He explained that already in the mid-90s there was a push in South Africa to bring power close to the Goldfields by way of nuclear power from a small modular reactor and that such a reactor was indeed designed by nuclear power experts.
Kemm said a small brigade of greens, the global financial crisis as well as political interference have scuttled this and other plans and it has not been able to regain momentum.
“The past year the scene has however changed dramatically in favour of new nuclear.”
His planned reactor, the HTMR-100, Kemm believes is part of the solution to South Africa’s electricity crisis.
“We want to start building now,” he said.
He explained that in terms of size, such a nuclear power reactor and its supporting buildings would fill a rugby field, and provision would also have to be made for around four floors underground for the reactor itself.
“The nuclear power it can provide is predictable, sustainable and cheap to put on the grid. Solar and wind power don’t have these advantages,” said Kemm.
He pointed out that South Africa can once again become a leading force in the nuclear power world if such a reactor can be built and erected.
“We now need leadership in the business world and in the political sphere to solve the power crisis,” said Kemm.
He believes that because Pelindaba already has a nuclear technology licence, it is a suitable place to set up such a small modular reactor.
According to Kemm, it will take five years before the production of power can begin.
He believes that the expertise is available for its construction as well as its operation, as many South African nuclear experts were trained at the beginning of the 21st century, and are now scattered around the world but want to return to South Africa.
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