Six nuclear power stations planned

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Johannesburg - South Africa could get up to six new nuclear power stations.

At an Investec Power Summit in Sandton on Tuesday Energy Minister Dipuo Peters said that the development of a fleet of five or six new nuclear power stations in South Africa could lead to 70 000 new jobs.

An ambitious plan such as this would require many more nuclear energy experts than this country currently has. South Africa therefore needs to train more nuclear engineers.

Nuclear power is a growing global industry, and South Africa must therefore compete with the rest of the world for nuclear expertise.
The country will also have to develop a nuclear-energy support industry.

Fortunately, she said, skills developed in the pebble-bed nuclear reactor programme can be harnessed.

She said that a series of nuclear power stations would be more cost-effective than a single one. It costs three times more to build a nuclear power station than a coal-fired plant of the same size.

Medupi, which will produce 4 800MW, will cost R125bn.

Peters said the availability of uranium in South Africa is a big advantage.

SA just haS to be able to convert this mineral locally into a form that can be used, rather than exporting it and then re-importing the final product, she said.

EDF South Africa MD Frederic Diore said government should not exclude Eskom with regard to nuclear power.

Government is talking about a new, independent entity that will see to nuclear power. But Eskom has had 30 years’ experience in the field and it would be wrong to simply toss aside this experience, he said.

Meanwhile Yousuf Haffajee, the head of Eskom’s new power purchasing division – which will buy electricity from independent power providers – said on Tuesday that Eskom was planning to start a selection process for renewable energy projects in October or November.

These projects will form part of government’s aim of adding 1 025MW of renewable energy to the network by 2013.

- Sake24.com
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Fin24
 
Yay nuclear power. I'm just concerned about the rash on my third breast..
 
If they build nuclear, then they can start decommissioning those environmentally unfriendly horrible coal power stations!
 
But I thought...

Sheez the confuse me. Where this idea not scrapped a few months ago?

But yay! But not at my cost please. :o
 
Ya, we need to start producing our own enriched uranium first though. We used to do it a up until a few years ago i think.

While nuclear power is probably the most viable source at the moment, why is there no drive to develop some solar power plants? even experimental plants?
 
SteveO said:
Ya, we need to start producing our own enriched uranium first though. We used to do it a up until a few years ago i think.

While nuclear power is probably the most viable source at the moment, why is there no drive to develop some solar power plants? even experimental plants?
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solar plants are just to expensive, although the idea is welcoming, currently Nuclear is the most economical and environment friendly idea at the moment, seeing that SA doesn't have any wind power :)
 
Yip, solar power is even more expensive per MW. Also, when its night time it dont work too well, whereas nukes keep on nuking all day long :D Also remember that we have a base load electricity shortage, and solar power is no good for fixing that. It is very useful though for assisting with peak loads during the day however.
 
I know that there are many people that say NO to nuclear....but at the end of the day...it is the only source that can produce a huge amount of power with little fuel and in a clean way, provided that the waste material is stored safely. I am happy to hear this. France has something like 59 nuclear power stations and has some of the cheapest engergy in Europe.
 
ocleroux said:
I know that there are many people that say NO to nuclear....but at the end of the day...it is the only source that can produce a huge amount of power with little fuel and in a clean way, provided that the waste material is stored safely. I am happy to hear this. France has something like 59 nuclear power stations and has some of the cheapest engergy in Europe.
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there are new methods to extract and reduce all the waste material, a nuclear power station is awesome provided things get maintained.
 
Nuclear isn't ideal, but I guess it's a case of going for the lesser of the two evils. It's great that there will be quite a few permanent high tech jobs created by the proposed power stations.

The_Assimilator said:
About frigging time.
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+1
 
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We already have fusion, heck you can do it in your garage! It just does not output more power than what it needs to run yet (except in bomb form of course).
 
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