Alec Erwin, South Africa’s Minister of Public Enterprises, said the country would look to nuclear-generated power for the country’s future power needs.
He said as the country sought to reduce dependance on coal-fuelled power stations, a viable base-load power source would be needed.
“Nuclear is such a viable source,” said Erwin at a high temperature reactor conference in Sandton on Monday.
He added that the government was currently planning the construction of between 20 and 30 Pebble Bed Modular Reactors (PBMR), that would generate an estimated 5 000 megawatts.
The first reactor would be commissioned in 2013/2014, said Erwin.
He said he valued the government’s future investment in the development of the PBMR at hundreds of millions of dollars. He said other sources of energy would be studied by the government, but the current preference was one of nuclear power. – I-Net Bridge