nuclear-news

Dim future for nuclear energy in South Africa

with the global economic slowdown, things have not improved much. Investments are not forthcoming from international lending banks.

South Africa still in pursuit of its nuclear future | The Energy Collective July 27, 2010 Pebble Bed project is shut down. Future reactor investments up in the air.This is not a good time to be looking to invest in nuclear energy in South Africa. Eskom, the major utility that would buy them, backed out of a multi-reactor tender a few years ago because it lacked the money to pay for them.

Since then, with the global economic slowdown, things have not improved much. Investments are not forthcoming from international lending banks.

Worse for Eskom, its grand plant to populate the country with 165 MW Pebble Bed reactors has come to an end. PBMR, the firm doing the R&D to develop the technology, has shut its doors losing its CEO and laying off most of the staff earlier this year. On July 5 Public Enterprises Minister Barbara Hogan said in a speech at a mining conference there will be no further funding for the project….The South African government has reportedly spent 5 billion SA Rand ($671 million) on the Pebble Bed project since 1994 including half that amount on a demonstration plant. A reactor pressure vessel bought for the project from a Spanish vendor was never delivered because PBMR could not pay the transportation costs………..

July 28, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, South Africa, technology | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear technology, reactor, uranium