Interest shown by synthetic-fuel firm Sasol in the pebble-bed modular reactor (PBMR) is evidence of private-sector interest in nuclear power, Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin argued on Tuesday.
He was speaking in his policy debate in the National Council of Provinces.
Erwin, who delivered his budget vote in the National Assembly last week, said that the interest of the private sector indicates that the PBMR was “a commercially viable option” for it.
“Recently, Sasol indicated that it is in talks with the pebble bed … on a number of process heat applications,” he told MPs serving in the council.
Speaking generally about the power needs of the country, he said the R150-billion infrastructure investment by state-owned enterprise Eskom “will improve the security of supply which is key to supporting a growing economy”.
Eskom and the PBMR will be key to providing environmentally sustainable electricity, he said. In addition, nuclear energy is the most viable alternative to power from coal.
Turning to independent power producers, Erwin said that his department will be working “closely” with the department of minerals and energy to “fast-track” the introduction of independent power producers into the electricity system, “which we believe will be a valuable addition to the generation capacity in South Africa”.
Earlier, the Treasury’s deputy director general, Andrew Donaldson, told MPs in the National Assembly finance committee that it will not be a “straightforward” matter to introduce independent power producers into a market currently dominated by — for all practical purposes — a single producer,
Eskom.
There is the risk of being subject to unfair competition from the dominant supplier, he said.
Turning to the PBMR, he argued that this project is part of the government’s responsibility to look ahead over a time period of up to 75 years, something which the private sector cannot do. The PBMR is a very large “and complex project”, he said, which has already received some investment from the government, the Industrial Development Corporation, Eskom “and some international investors”.
The project is moving into a phase of substantial investment with the construction of the demonstration plant, which he said is “en route to a possible role in the global nuclear energy industry involving next generation new technology”.
Donaldson said the PBMR is very clean technology and safer than nuclear power plants. Comparatively, it is proliferation security technology, as it is “much harder” to take spent fuel from “a PBMR-kind plant” and convert it into dangerous products, he said.
With the planned larger nuclear build by Eskom and the PBMR, Erwin noted that the government looks to form a new nuclear-energy division within Eskom that will have “very positive implications for the future of a nuclear engineering industry in South Africa”.
The construction of the PBMR pilot fuel plant at Pelindaba and the approval of the power plant in the Western Cape are expected to occur in this year. — I-Net Bridge