Nuclear Energy – Recovering an Industry

South Africa has taken an important step toward establishing a balanced and sustainable energy portfolio for the country by releasing an RFI for nuclear energy. This RFI will reveal the true value and costs of nuclear energy, which the public was denied with the termination of the RFI in 2016.

Electricity is one of the largest and most valuable commodities in the world today, especially when it is clean, reliable, affordable, and safe. The efficacy of nuclear energy is backed by its sheer volume of clean, reliable electricity that helps mankind and forwards real progress and expansion.

A 1-Gigawatt nuclear power plant (NPP) can produce up to 3x South Africa’s annual electricity consumption, or 600 TWh, during its 75-year operating life. Due to the low volumes of fuel used, the spent fuel produced will fit on half a tennis court or less than 400m³. This waste can be safely stored or processed into other NPP fuels, reducing the volume that needs to be managed over the long term by about 80%.

Some of that abundant thermal and electrical energy can also provide process heat, desalination, and green hydrogen when grid demands are low. Modern NPPs are also a lot more flexible in following demand and, to a degree, like coal and gas, can work in harmony with intermittent energy sources. The introduction of Small Modular Reactors (SMR) in the future should also improve flexibility.

Another key benefit of a nuclear new build is the extent of localisation that can be achieved with a well-prepared industry, resulting in sustainable jobs during development, construction, and O&M. Partnerships with experienced international resources, in a controlled EPC environment, will alleviate the risks we recently experienced in our coal new builds, and something that Eskom could manage a lot better.

The barriers to entry to provide services to the nuclear industry are understandably higher, considering the exceptional quality and safety standards required from the engineering, material supply, manufacturing, and construction sectors. These standards raise the overall competence of our industry across all sectors, thereby transforming imports into exports while supporting our post-Covid Economic Recovery Plan.

South Africa has a rich nuclear industry heritage, dating back to the 60’s, with Necsa’s research reactor and the 80’s, with the construction and commissioning of Koeberg. The PBMR program, at the start of the 21st century, also positioned our nuclear industrial capabilities in the global arena with many accolades.

Our Eskom, Necsa, and PBMR resources added enormous value to South Africa’s recent nuclear new build procurement and Koeberg refurbishment programs. For the latter, local engineering, project management, and construction companies are being successfully qualified to the top international nuclear quality and safety standards, which sets a great precedent for the localisation of a nuclear newbuild. We are ready to manage the alignment and nuclear readiness of our local Industry Champions.

With reliable clean energy systems, powering growth into our economy, it is only fitting for our industry leaders to join Government in realising a successful nuclear build program for South Africa. This time, a transformed industry will “put South Africa back to work” and lead us out of this energy paralysis.

Nuclear Energy’s “Least Regret”

South Africa has been one of the pioneering nations in electricity supply where, in 1882, Kimberly had electric streetlamps while London still relied on gas. In 1887, the first centralised coal-fired power station was built in Brakpan to power the local mines and industries of Johannesburg. This sparked a nation-wide electricity expansion program using coal-fired power plants to power our towns into cities, supply our rail infrastructures and safely grow our mining and industrial economies.

The abundance of coal in South Africa and power plant scalability led to the massive capacity expansion program over the second half of the 20th century to where we are today, where over 80% of the electricity we consume is powered by coal.

As we entered the 21st century, our unprecedented demand for energy prompted us to find more sustainable ways to generate power to ensure we also took care of the environment and our citizen’s health. Today, energy planners should minimally achieve energy security, environmental sustainability, and access to affordable energy as primary goals. Therefore, a transition toward a more balanced and sustainable energy portfolio is being pursued.

While hydro and nuclear energy were making their own 20th century contributions, recent advancements in technology saw the introduction of gas and renewable energy, like wind and solar, into our energy mix. With the initial improvements in cost and performance, the global market-share of installed gas and renewable energy grew exponentially over the last two decades.

Due to Eskom’s aging assets, challenging new-builds and the intermittency of renewables, our past energy planning, or lack of execution, has imploded our energy security, given the recent load-shedding we and our economy have had to endure. Our future is not encouraging either, as we plan to decommission a quarter of our energy capacity over the next decade, with little substance on the drawing board.

With the wealth of experience, we now have, on the performance characteristics and actual costs of all the different generation technologies, we can make informed decisions toward planning and implementing the most optimal energy systems for our country’s future needs.

While nuclear energy is being portrayed as an “unpopular” solution for South Africa, it is quietly producing the cheapest, cleanest, safest, and most reliable electricity in the country, making it attractive for intensive energy users. That is why it is aptly considered by our Energy Minister as an energy source of “least regret”.

Considering the high levels of safety built into nuclear power plants, their construction costs are understandably higher. However, considering their extremely high life expectancy, the sheer volume of electricity they produce and their low operating costs, the electricity produced is competitive, even during the capitalisation phase, and unchallenged once paid off. The longer construction lead times and safe operating life are also a great benefit toward addressing our country’s rising unemployment while raising the standards of our industries.

Creating Potential Ghost Towns or Future Energy Hubs

Like the cars we drive, our hard-working coal power plants, built in the 60’s and early 70’s, become unreliable, more expensive to run and produce emissions that aren’t sustainable today. As much as we have become dependent on these legendary workhorses that powered our emerging economy, they are reaching the end of their useful life expectancy. This would result in 10 Gigawatts of base-load electricity retired from our grid over the next 5 to 10 years at a vulnerable time ...

The future of these power plants, as well as the villages and communities that have evolved around them, should also be considered carefully in the decommissioning phase. We can turn these energy villages into ghost towns, or we can realise their potential and turn these valuable resources and infrastructures into future energy hubs, based on more advanced and sustainable power generation technologies, for our future energy needs. There are many re-powering programs around the world that could be considered for these retiring power plants.

The existing power stations have many valuable infrastructures like: access roads, high capacity grid connections, buildings, security, water and fuel supplies. These can facilitate a rapid and cost-effective replacement of these older stations with more advanced and cleaner technologies like: High Efficiency Low Emissions Coal, Combined Cycle Gas Turbines and Small Modular Nuclear Reactors. Multiple technologies, including Solar Energy, can be integrated on these stations to create valuable and versatile Energy Hubs. The Existing environmental permits for these sites should support a balanced portfolio of sustainable power generation technologies.

These Energy Hubs can also be used to develop and up-skill the existing resources we have for the next generation technologies. They can also develop new multi-skilled supply chains like: Power Plant Decommissioning, Construction of Modern Power Systems and the Operation and Maintenance regimes associated with these modern generation technologies.

Advanced power systems will also provide incubators and centres of excellence for the competences we need in our transition toward 4IR technologies. These programs align with our NDP objectives and should be welcomed by our Government and embraced by our Industry.

Ultimately, these Energy Hubs will generate the clean, reliable, safe and affordable sources of electricity we need to power our economy back into shape while putting South Africa back to work.

Ghost towns do completely the opposite and become a burden….