I can't remember exactly, my contract expired two years ago. I think it was 55%, but as I said, I can't remember the figure. The core business was fine and that is who I meant when I mentioned the brilliant people. However, it always seemed to me that the engineers and physicists suffered the most from the stupid political fighting in the support functions. I suppose that is true of many organisations, but with a complete lack of leadership from top management, I think that is what finally ripped the project apart.
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Hogan says PBMR plug has been pulled
- Thread starter unskinnybob
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I can't remember exactly, my contract expired two years ago. I think it was 55%, but as I said, I can't remember the figure. The core business was fine and that is who I meant when I mentioned the brilliant people. However, it always seemed to me that the engineers and physicists suffered the most from the stupid political fighting in the support functions. I suppose that is true of many organisations, but with a complete lack of leadership from top management, I think that is what finally ripped the project apart.
Vrotappel
Bulls fan
South Africa needs to invest in nuclear technology. Hopefully this is still happening somewhere. One of our biggest failures is to make the difficult decisions in time.
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Datura
Captain Faptastic
Well, they certainly were not an exempted micro enterprise. So I would imagine that they were using the 100 points target (combination of any four of the following):
- Ownership 25 points 25%+1
- Management 25 points 50.1%
- Employment Equity 25 points (40% to 70%)
- Skills Development 25 points 2% of payroll
- Preferential Procurement 25 points 50%
- Enterprise Development 25 points 2% (NPAT)
- Socio- Economic Development 25 points 1% (NPAT)
dlk001
Executive Member
I fully agree. Three of my colleagues who worked there saw the light 3 yrs ago and decided to resign. Two of them are working for my former company in Minnesota because their skills are highly specialized with little market in SA. One of them now works for the Dept of Energy as a director. Lack of leadership from top management is really a problem. Even in my company, we have highly technically competent engineers but lack management.
Datura
Captain Faptastic
The minute the government shovels in billions for funding, it can take years to make any big decisions. Bureaucratical nightmare. An expensive one in this case.
dlk001
Executive Member
Thank you!
dlk001
Executive Member
Why I pulled the plug on the PBMR - Hogan
Datura
Captain Faptastic
They were initially given over R2 billion in 2004 by the government. And then, in 2007, were given an additional R6 billion to spread over the next three years. The government is in no financial position to contribute further at the moment and from that point of view I am all in favour of the decision. It was a great project that had immense potential and it is difficult to accuse the government of funding them purely to meet any budget consumption obligations. It was a hell of a lot of money to be putting into a single project that, in essence, always carried a risk of not seeing completion. No matter how small that risk may have seemed at the time, I feel that R9 billion is just too much money for our government to put at risk on a single project. Surely the funding could have been spread among smaller projects that could have, collectively, been as important as the PBMR project. If not, more so?
I am Penguin
Executive Member
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fixed
Datura
Captain Faptastic
fixed
Yah...so much... they could've funded 1% of medupi and kusile.....
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Mila
Honorary Master
Build one house of the Pimp master.
The irony is that people are moaning and bitching because 9billion have been wasted on a shady “arms deal” like project. When infact they should moaning and that this project has been canned as a whole. I have no doubt in my mind that this company should have been downscaled to cut costs during these financial times. But to put it into some care and maintance mode is pretty much shutting it down totally and that is very short sighted.
All people see is 9billion rands. Omgomgomg. It’s a drop in the bucket folks. Instead of it being spend on mercs, mansions, a trip for the zuma family overseas or the general cock up which is RDP housing it was spend on technology and engineering (something we in RSA desperately need). Whether the PBMR would’ve been a viable energy source or not is irrelevant. The fact is that money was spend to promote technology and create a local nuclear company. To promote technology and education. Hell the NW university scored a entire nuclear engineering department and trained a crap load of engineers thanks to this “shady” project. Westinghouse US bought out an entire local nuclear company and invested in our nuclear industry thanks to this “shady” project. A whole host of local small sized private engineering companies were formed thanks to this “shady” project. There was once again reason to for school leavers to study engineering and science thanks to this “shady” project.
Point is that 9billion (again…drop in the bucket…1% of what kusile and medupi will cost us… R15 per taxpayer per month) was not necessarily a total waste. It is a waste now due to the plug being pulled. All the economic activity and education which formed around this project now falls flat on it’s face.
The idea of a PBMR power plant and company was envisaged but folks in the apartheid government. It was implemented by the ANC when they still had some common sense. The only flaw in this project was that it was implanted to hastily with poor planning.
In zuma era we don’t need this. We don't want to go through to many hardships. We only need free food, a tree and a bucket to sit on all day long.
All people see is 9billion rands. Omgomgomg. It’s a drop in the bucket folks. Instead of it being spend on mercs, mansions, a trip for the zuma family overseas or the general cock up which is RDP housing it was spend on technology and engineering (something we in RSA desperately need). Whether the PBMR would’ve been a viable energy source or not is irrelevant. The fact is that money was spend to promote technology and create a local nuclear company. To promote technology and education. Hell the NW university scored a entire nuclear engineering department and trained a crap load of engineers thanks to this “shady” project. Westinghouse US bought out an entire local nuclear company and invested in our nuclear industry thanks to this “shady” project. A whole host of local small sized private engineering companies were formed thanks to this “shady” project. There was once again reason to for school leavers to study engineering and science thanks to this “shady” project.
Point is that 9billion (again…drop in the bucket…1% of what kusile and medupi will cost us… R15 per taxpayer per month) was not necessarily a total waste. It is a waste now due to the plug being pulled. All the economic activity and education which formed around this project now falls flat on it’s face.
The idea of a PBMR power plant and company was envisaged but folks in the apartheid government. It was implemented by the ANC when they still had some common sense. The only flaw in this project was that it was implanted to hastily with poor planning.
In zuma era we don’t need this. We don't want to go through to many hardships. We only need free food, a tree and a bucket to sit on all day long.
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Datura
Captain Faptastic
What is the total figure please?
R9billion is NOT (in my uninformed opinion) a drop in the bucket. It is R9billion and I cotributed towards it. And, it's gone and there is sweet fanny adams to show for it.
TonyHawk
Expert Member
coming from HE that says
Do you know what it means to make a fool of yourself ? :wtf:
Datura
Captain Faptastic
Do you know what it means to make a fool of yourself ? :wtf:
They are trolls. Best not to feed them.
To you personally it's not a drop in the bucket I agree. It the broader scheme of things it's ****ol. Nothing.
Now before you rage let me explain because it seems you didn’t read my post properly:
Even without an actual PBMR standing there we had something to show for it until guvament decided pulled the plug. We had 9 billion invested to create our very own local nuclear industry. Not even all first world countries have this privilege. Universities bought into it. Education, local industries etc etc. 9 billion ZAR IS nothing… nada for give for that. The potential was there… no it’s gone.
I’m not saying you should not be angered but this, but just consider that the biggest mistake was not to embark on this project, but rather to entirely pull the plug on it. And it’s obvious that the PBMR self is probably not viable yet… but then again, rome wasn’t built in a day now was it?
We need nuclear power plants. The pbmr company, eskom, Westinghouse and all these small local firms which sprouted thanks to a measily 9billion could’ve contributed a fair amount of cheap local technical skills to get this job done. You know what’s going to happen now? Government will contract Areva via “BEE partners” for construction instead of using local skills developed over the past 10 years with that “huge” sum of money.
And then we’re going to have “power-gate” all over again.
Datura
Captain Faptastic
I did read your post. And I am not going to rage at all
On the contrary, I appreciate and respect your point of view on the matter and the fact that you took time to share it.I just couldn't find figures anywhere and thought you may have some. Otherwise, I agreed with most of what you had to say.
I am not condemning funding of this sort but just wish that our government would be more careful. From what I can gether online, red flags were up before the government even began contributing. I need to dig a little deeper before I post any links.
Also, it will be interesting to see what the audit will show. Am I being too optomistic in thinking that the audit and investigation results will be a true reflection of what went wrong?
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Yah you are quite correct. Red flags were raised and some of them spelled doom for the specific project but never for the technology or company (well unless you believe everything the greens feed you). And I also believe that if these flags were addressed early, this company might have been a lot further ito development. It might have actually had a baselined power plant design.
You also have to remember that the nuclear industry isn’t exactly an easy place to work in. It is heavily politicized, you need money, patience and government support.
This company was definitely badly managed and it’s a real pity. I for one feel that deciding to invest in a large nuclear technology company was actually a great call from government back in 2000.
I guess I’m just annoyed that it pretty much got canned totally without any real thought from our government.
Let me give you a quick example of what our government knows about it’s own country. The other day there was a nuclear energy summit in pta. The DG of DPE said: “We need to built up nuclear skills as the last time money was spend on this, was 30years ago”. Even though we have been spending 9billion over the past 10 years to get something going?
Also another example of where the pbmr company contributed to this country…. 10 years ago the NNR didn’t have a clue how to license a nuclear power plant. They were a typical useless government department. Thanks to 10 years of collaboration with pbmr and nuclear experts from all over the world, the NNR actually stands a chance to license future light water reactors. It’s not all bad
You also have to remember that the nuclear industry isn’t exactly an easy place to work in. It is heavily politicized, you need money, patience and government support.
This company was definitely badly managed and it’s a real pity. I for one feel that deciding to invest in a large nuclear technology company was actually a great call from government back in 2000.
I guess I’m just annoyed that it pretty much got canned totally without any real thought from our government.
Let me give you a quick example of what our government knows about it’s own country. The other day there was a nuclear energy summit in pta. The DG of DPE said: “We need to built up nuclear skills as the last time money was spend on this, was 30years ago”. Even though we have been spending 9billion over the past 10 years to get something going?
Also another example of where the pbmr company contributed to this country…. 10 years ago the NNR didn’t have a clue how to license a nuclear power plant. They were a typical useless government department. Thanks to 10 years of collaboration with pbmr and nuclear experts from all over the world, the NNR actually stands a chance to license future light water reactors. It’s not all bad
Datura
Captain Faptastic
Agreed. It's not all bad. The funding from government was never intended as a money making investment. Not directly anyway. It was to secure much needed assets and to develop and nurture intelligence in a field that is needed in today's energy hungry environment. Besides the money being lost and the project being canned, I am confident that knowledge and a better intimacy in this and related fields was gained. It's not for me to even try to put a monetary value on the gains though. I wouldn't know where to begin.
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