South Africa to Invest 100 Billion Rand in New Nuclear Capacity.

[NNadir]

R100bn plan to power SA with nuclear plants
February 15, 2007

By Justin Brown

Johannesburg - The Nuclear Energy Corporation of SA (Necsa) expects electricity generated from nuclear energy to increase by 25 000 megawatts by 2030, which could cost as much as R100 billion.

To achieve this, the government would have to build about 24 pebble bed modular nuclear reactors as well as 12 conventional nuclear power stations, Necsa chief executive Rob Adam told a nuclear power conference in Johannesburg.

The major shift to increased reliance on nuclear power is aimed at reducing South Africa's dependence on coal-fired power stations, which emit greenhouse gases.

Eskom is spending R97 billion to meet growing demand for energy.

Minister of public enterprises Alec Erwin said two years ago that the government was looking to produce 4 000MW to 5 000MW of power from pebble bed reactors, which equates to between 20 and 30 modular reactors of 165MW each...

...PBMR plans to start building a demonstration plant next year, with full operation by 2012.

Adam said the planned nuclear power could translate to about 30 percent of South Africa's energy mix in 2030. It would be more than two-thirds of the 36 000MW currently generated by Eskom, which includes 1 800MW from the Koeberg nuclear plant in Cape Town.

Adam said South Africa's experience as a nuclear weapons power had left it with a skills legacy to undertake uranium enrichment.

"This is rocket science, it is not something anyone can do in their backyard, but South Africa has done it before," he said. "We have the people, but if we wait another 10 years they will have all retired..."

http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=&fArticleId=3682375

In the text of the article it is reported that the government plan to expand nuclear capacity is designed to reduce reliance on coal.

[Poll_Blind]

1. South Africa: The only country to develop nukes then stop the program and dismantle them.

Real, working nuclear bombs. Discarded their program, stopped it, dismantled the weapons.

Gives me hope. It really does.

PB

[NNadir]

2. I think the rise of Nelson Mandela had something to do with that.

Nelson Mandela ranks among the greatest statemen of the 20th century.

History will always be in awe of him.

[Nihil]

6. Not bad for a former "terrorist" (or is it "insurgent"?) eh?

Given that Mandela was a criminal operating with murderous bands of
thugs but turned into a great statesman, it gives me hope that other
"murderous terrorist leaders" might also benefit their countries if
they get the chance ...

It almost lets me hope for a Damascene conversion of some of the
major obstacles to environmental progress (along with the early deaths
of the worst pro-coal/pro-oil protagonists).

[NNadir]

7. Mandela was simply a most remarkable man.

People of his character and depth do not pass through the world often.

[phantom power]

3. Interesting that they're very aware of the expertise problem.

[phantom power]

4. Why are they mixing pebble-bed with conventional reactors?

This is really two questions. Why are they bothering with pebble bed, and if they are going with pebble bed, why do they want the other conventional ones?

[NNadir]

5. Eskom is a primary developer of the Pebble Bed concept.

South Africa has the technology for Fischer-Tropsch down solidly since they industrially practiced it during the apartheid era.

I can't stand the thought of Fischer-Tropsch chemistry, but if one were to choose to do it without burning extra coal as a source of the necessary heat, a high temperature nuclear reactor would be suitable for this purpose. This may be in the back (or maybe the foreground) of the Eskom people's mind. There is talk of running a similar scheme with the tar sands in Alberta. As you know, I oppose the use of the tar sands and any other fossil fuel based energy.

It is claimed that the PBR will be extraordinarily cheap as well. This fits with South African intentions. This may be true, at least for the short time that "once through" uranium use is below a few hundred bucks a kilo.

Light water reactors are much more standard on a world wide basis for the generation of electricity. South Africa has been running light water reactors for a number of years, with fairly good success. They will build some of these because they are excellent reactors that have a well established history of success.

My view is that a fleet of nuclear reactors should have some variability.

I think the ideal solution would be a fleet of light water reactors large enough to displace coal coupled with a fleet of thorium based CANDU (heavy water) reactors to extend the utility of spent light water reactor fuel and to provide for thermal fuel breeding. My hope is that the world will also develop a fleet of fast neutron spectra reactors that are either of the lead/bismuth or molten salt type. These high temperature type reactors could very well be utilized to displace both oil and gas.

I don't like helium cooled brayton cycle reactors, including PBRs, because I do not regard the world's supply of helium as being very certain, and because I still regard the fuel as being too chemically stable for recycling. Nevertheless these reactors, under the right circumstances can exhibit pretty good thermal efficieny as well as high fuel burn-up. They're not the worst things on earth. The worst things on earth are all coal plants. There is not one nuclear reactor of any type that is NOT preferable to a coal plant of any type or as dangerous as a coal plant.

If South Africa insists on PBR's with the stated intention of using less coal, I find this acceptable, if less than perfectly ideal.

[Massacure]

8. I have a question for you.

You state that you do not really like PBRs all that much because of their fuel stability. But is the problem of recycling spent PBR fuel technological or is it just merely economical?

[NNadir]

9. It is both technical and economic.

All recycling is superficially not economic - if you ignore external costs - as long as virgin uranium is under a few hundred bucks a kilo.

PBR fuel is designed to be stable under very extreme conditions, including conditions of high temperature - and because it is designed to be a vehicle for so called "nuclear waste" - under extreme chemical conditions as well. Both of these features are counter productive to recycling.

I have had some conversations with nuclear professionals recently who claim that PBR fuel can be recycled, but I note that there is no infrastructure to do so.

I am sure that it could be accomplished technically. Fluorine chemistry - not the nicest chemistry but chemistry that has always been a part of the nuclear fuel cycle - suggests itself. However it would seem to me that it would be unnecessarily difficult. Using flourine chemistry with carbon always presents a risk of the production of carbon tetrafluoride. PBR fuel is carbon based, using both graphite and silcon carbide. While this carbon tetrafluoride is nontoxic, its atmopheric lifetime is extremely long - and it is a potent greenhouse gas. Although the energy density of uranium is extraordinarily high, meaning that chemical effects are likely to be small, these things have a way of adding up over the long term. Thus it is entirely possible that the rather silly 21st century obsession with so called "nuclear waste" - an obsession that is in part the justification for PBR fuel - could involve some very long term atmospheric consequences.

It behooves us to look at the true external costs of energy. I suspect that the external cost of recycling PBR fuel would be higher than the external costs of recycling light water reactor fuels.

It would also seem to me that the external and internal cost of recycling molten salt reactor fuel would be extraordinarily low, much lower even than the external cost of recycling light water reactor fuel. I believe this type of reactor will prove to dominate the latter part of this century if there is a latter part of this century at all.

I do not think that current recycling chemistry for light water reactors - the PUREX process - is necessarily the last or best word on the subject. I would suspect that molten salt chemistry and/or electrorefining will displace PUREX wet chemistry in the future, even before molten salt reactors become widespread technology. There may be circumstances under which PBR type fuels could be incorporated into such schemes - but I am not an expert and do not know.

Interestingly the production of carbon tetrafluoride has been an issue in some types of solar cell manufacture. Of course, the actual production of solar cells has been trivial but if - and I doubt this will happen in the next decades - solar energy were to become a significant source of energy, the external cost - including things like carbon tetrafluoride - will be correspondingly larger. Here is a comment by a person at Brookhaven National Laboratory who is a specialist on the external cost of solar energy:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0CYP/is_1_110/ai_83445535

There are no significant environmental and safety hazards with any of (the types of solar cells) to the scale that they are manufactured today," he explains. And although there are some hazardous materials used, such as silane gas, cadmium, carbon tetrafluoride, and lead, he says, "if you look at the quantities in relation to their use in other industries, they are very, very small." But these risks will become more significant as the industry grows, he adds.

The bold is mine.