SA cannot afford a nuclear build, especially not one that is based on ideology or nationalist pride
Eskom's Koeberg nuclear power station near Cape Town. Picture: SUNDAY TIMES
But what does the IRP 2019 — the government’s approved and gazetted road map for electricity generation — actually say about nuclear power? Strangely enough, this was exactly the issue that tripped the minister up when the IRP was first released.
The key words in the “correct” version of the IRP are “commence preparations” and “at a pace and scale the country can afford”. Given the current economic, fiscal, social and medical crises in SA, it cannot be right that a nuclear new build, to be procured by 2024, is prioritised ahead of the societal and economic ills of our country. And, more specifically, the IRP doescall for the procurement of an additional 2,500MW of nuclear in the current IRP time frame.
While small reactors are nothing new, having been used on submarines and various warships for many years, the commercial application has lagged well behind. A number of countries are developing the technology, but no-one is rolling it out to any significant degree. The country that is furthest ahead in this regard is China, though several others have promising designs that are at various stages of development.
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