HTMR-100 power plant model with the simplest design. Image: Stratek Global
South African nuclear scientists want to build a new generation of small nuclear reactors to plug holes in the country's blackout-hit power grid and build an export industry for the future.
One company has designed a small, gas-cooled, modular nuclear reactor that can be installed in less than three years on a site smaller than a soccer field and safely produce enough electricity for a city.
Similar projects are underway in other countries as the world faces the challenge of reducing carbon emissions while driving the economy of the future by electrifying transportation, heating and data centers.
Europe is divided on its future development. Some countries, led by France, are betting on nuclear development. Other countries, such as Germany, hope that renewable energy such as wind and solar power will displace fossil fuels and compensate for the loss of access to Russia's natural gas exports.
South Africa will rely on coal for some time to come, but it is already short on electricity, so it is betting on ramping up its nuclear program.
Some experts, such as Kelvin Kem, a nuclear physicist and chief executive of Pretoria-based private organization Stratec Global, also believe that South Africa is taking the lead in developing fourth-generation nuclear reactors. We believe that we are in a unique position to hold the reins.
planned power outage
“I believe that the future is not only just around the corner, it is already here,” Kem told AFP in an interview from the garden of his home on the outskirts of Pretoria.
“I see a massive global proliferation of nuclear power of all scales over the next six years and a huge change of heart over the next 24 months. I believe South Africa is already a leader. I am.”
South Africa's civil nuclear efforts began in 1976, when construction began on the Koeberg nuclear power station on the South Atlantic coast just north of Cape Town.
The plant was commissioned 40 years ago and has a generating capacity of just under 2,000 megawatts, compared to the 27,000 megawatts that South Africa's much-derided state-owned electricity company Eskom can supply thanks to its largely carbon-intensive coal-fired power plants. It's just a small part of it.
But domestic electricity demand often reaches more than 32,000 megawatts a day, and South Africans face rolling blackouts and “load shedding” for up to 12 hours a day, leaving what should be the continent's electricity powerhouse. This is a serious burden on the economy.
In December, the government announced plans to bring the first of a new series of nuclear power plants online by 2033, adding an additional 2,500 megawatts of capacity, and updating the Köberg nuclear power plant for another 20 years of service life. They announced that they plan to extend it.
However, despite the installation of solar panels on homes and developments across the country, there will still be a shortage of electricity in the medium term. This is where small modular plants come into play in the plans of nuclear evangelists like Kem.
Large plants like Koeberg's, with its two French-designed pressurized water reactors (PWRs), need to be located by the sea so that 80 tons of cold water can be pumped in per second to cool the reactors. there is.
However, much of South Africa is arid, with the commercial center of Johannesburg and energy-intensive mines and industries far from the sea. The capital, Pretoria, is as far from Cape Town's cool Atlantic coast as Rome is from London.
Stratek wants to enter here with its High Temperature Modular Reactor (HTMR-100).
Mr Kemm said he was already in talks with international operators as far afield as France and South Africa to install these helium gas-cooled reactors in groups of up to 10, typically six, to replace off-the-shelf steam turbines. It is said that it can supply electricity to.
Each of these plants produces less than 300 megawatts of electricity, enough for a major mining complex in a city the size of Pretoria and for domestic use.
weak land
But best of all, they are easy to supply, consume less than a truckload of uranium fuel pellets per year in a handheld cricket-ball-sized sphere, and are cooled without seawater. It's easy.
By the standards of the nuclear industry, which has notoriously long and expensive development schedules, it would be relatively cheap and quick to install, and the price would drop once the first prototypes are up and running.
Kemm said that due to the rand's weakness, his company could aim to estimate the cost of the first reactor at $470 million, with subsequent constructions as low as $300 million each.
“We are very cheap even by world standards,” he said.
© Agence France-Presse
