Economic doubts about South African govt’s nuclear power programme

Do we really need a nuclear fleet?, Business Report, Mike Kantey, November 25 2012 Despite protestations by thousands of South Africans, our ANC-led government seems determined to spend over R1 trillion on a nuclear fleet, including a uranium enrichment plant, a fuel assembly plant, a reprocessing plant and a high-level waste management facility.

How has this impossibly expensive project been motivated and by whom?
Before the Integrated Resource Plan (the IRP2010) was finally
promulgated, Eskom’s position was presented at the public meetings
which were held along the coast to review the first draft of the
Environmental Impact Report for “Nuclear-1” in March-April 2010.

During these meetings, Eskom presented a “Project Motivation” at Slide
7 in their presentation as follows:

l Increasing demand for electricity (> 4 percent growth per annum).

l Projected requirement for more than 40 000MW of new
electricity-generating capacity over the next 20 years.

l In SA only coal and nuclear power are solutions for base load generation.

This first notion of a “four percent per annum” growth in electricity
demand was explained on September 25, 2007 at an “Energy Summit” to
which only the select few were invited……..

here has been no growth in electricity demand over the last four
years, thanks to non-existent economic growth and disinvestment,
massive electricity price hikes, and a natural drive for conservation
and energy efficiency.

The task of projecting GDP growth is difficult and decisions on growth
rates are often politically biased, as governments would like to
project a continuously high GDP growth when, in fact, this is unlikely
to occur.

GDP growth is seldom, if ever, exponential over a long period of time;
however, this is how GDP has been modelled in South Africa in the past
(NER 2004a; IEP 2003). If one examines other developed regions of the
world, it is easy to see that GDP growth increases, reaches a peak and
then declines. (Haw & Hughes, 2007)….
The ratio of energy demand growth to GDP growth has declined from
about 0.9 in the mid-1950s-1973 period to about 0.5 by the year
2000… As in the 1973-1985 period, this increase in efficiency has
been driven partly by price and partly by regulations.

In effect, “business-as-usual” in the industrial sector has meant
economic growth without energy growth for over three decades…..
t is in this era, where rational planning policies are over-determined
by secret deals, that Andrew Taylor’s comments in the London Financial
Times of 2001 remain instructive:

“Nuclear generation will remain uneconomic unless electricity prices
rise or it receives state financial help, according to forecasts
compiled by the government’s energy review team.

We therefore support the WWF call for a thorough overall of the
IRP2010 in the light of reality after the crash of 2008. Given:

1. The discovery of gas off the East African coastline.

2. The commitment to developing Inga in the DRC.

3. The commissioning of Medupi, Ingula and Kusile, and

4. The massive, world-wide commitment and funding for renewables.

Such a review must inevitably exclude a nuclear fleet for South Africa. http://www.thepost.co.za/do-we-really-need-a-nuclear-fleet-1.1430031#.ULQwQeR9JLs