Private communication to John Shanahan for public information.
Status of nuclear power and radioisotope production in South Africa as of June 2022 Kelvin Kemm June 27, 2022 The US initiated its Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in 1946, South Africa initiated its Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa (Necsa) in 1948. We had nuclear development policies and plans in place in the early 1950s. We have been in nuclear for a long time. This is not only nuclear power, but also a wide range of nuclear technology. For example, South Africa is the second-largest exporter of nuclear medicine in the world, exporting to 62 countries. The US is a major customer. We export twice a day, every day. Nuclear Power Conditions But back to nuclear power: South Africa has operated a 2000MW nuclear power station on the southern coast for almost 40 years. It is Koeberg and it produces South Africa's cheapest electricity. South Africa is a large country, as large as the whole of Western Europe added together. The distance from Pretoria, where I live, to Cape Town is the same as Rome to London. Why I point this out is that our circumstances are very different to those of Europe. Yet people like Germans keep coming here to talk us into 'doing it the right way, like their way.' They then bully African countries into adopting things like wind and solar energy systems, to 'save the Planet', which just don't work in our conditions. To my mind those systems don't work in Germany either, but they certainly don't work here. The whole cost structure is different too. For example, in South Africa we have the highest voltage (760 000 kV) longest range (1,500 km) highest-altitude (2000 m) power lines in the world, in one of the highest lightning incidence areas in the world. Power lines cost a lot of money to build. In Germany transmission distances are tiny by comparison, so transmission costs there are rather different to what they cost here, but we never ever see foreigners taking that into account. We have other interesting challenges too. For example; as I write, it in a couple of days past Midwinter and the temperature at midday is 13C but there's not a cloud in the sky 1
and there is brilliant full sunshine. Here in the Pretoria /Johannesburg region there is no rain in winter, and generally no clouds, so we have sunshine days throughout the winter. The grass and vegetation dries out. As one American woman said to me once when visiting here: Wow, there is that yellow grass that I see on National Geographic programs. Due to potential fire hazard some farmers and municipalities deliberately burn firebreaks in the grass in rural areas. The heat causes partially burnt brass, as pure carbon, to blow into the sky. It is blown onto the high voltage power lines. Some settles on the insulators. Night arrives and dew settles.... but it settles on the insulators covered in carbon. A spark can jump the insulator via the wet carbon path. A bad case can cause the power line to trip. That activates automatic protection gear. Some sparks don't cause a trip but they can cause a pulse to travel down the line in both directions. When such a pulse is detected at Koeberg nuclear power station the safety gear instructs the reactors to go into controlled shutdown and a warning alarm is sounded. Operators have to establish the source of the alarm before they can legally override the controlled shutdown. If the cause is not established very rapidly then operators are legally obliged to go down to Hot Shutdown before they can initiate a start-up again. On a few occasions reactors have been shut down for a day due to a grass fire 100 km away. You don't get that in Germany. It does not happen often here but we have to plan for it. There are many other examples of differences between our conditions and conditions in Europe. Nuclear Power Now back to nuclear power again: during the 1990s South Africa determined that additional reliable power production points were needed inland where there are extremely few large water sources, and which are far from the coalfields. Note that our coalfields are all clustered in the far north east of the country. It was decided to design and develop SMRs which would be gas-cooled. This was done and the PBMR was developed. At its height the project had 2,000 employees. In tooth actions to build the first plant. (By the way at this stage there were weekly attacks taking place on the HQ building by foreign intelligence agencies). The pressure vessel for the first PBMR was ordered from Japan and it arrived in South Africa. At that point the 2008 Subprime Mortgage drama struck the US, which had the effect that a number of major US banks withdrew their support for the PBMR, which had been negotiated over the previous year. As it happened we did not need money then, all the
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money was domestically available but the banks were important for international credibility and marketing purposes. Then at the same time South Africa had a change of government and the new President put a number of major projects 'on hold' pending review. The PBMR was put 'on hold'....and has stayed in that state. After a few months staff left, and to cut to the main point, a group of engineers left and started a private company which designed a simpler, cheaper, version of the reactor, which is now called the HTMR-100. This reactor is now at a point that we want to build it. I am the coordinator of the group. Here is an article which I wrote about it: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/11/28/small-modular-reactors-are-needed-inafrican-countries/ I believe that we are ahead of the rest of the world in the development of this type of reactor. To my mind the gas-cooled pebble fuel reactor is a better bet for African conditions than other types of SMR such as the molten salt reactor. However, very understandably, many in the world find it hard to believe that South Africa is so advanced in SMR development. I know when I travel to certain places in the world people ask me questions like; ‘ do you have airports in South Africa capable of taking large aircraft; (in fact at one point in the past South Africa operated the world’s largest Boeing, the 747 SUD, when no other country had it), do you have freeways; and so on. We definitely do, and have many other advanced systems. In fact we have possibly the best banking system in the world. We certainly have far more ATM machines than most of Europe. Americans are often amazed to find that they can visit a tiny town or village here, way out in the bush, and their American credit cards work just fine, at the grocer or pub. South Africa had GSM cell phone technology and cell phone text messaging two years before the US. To my amusement I demonstrated cell phone texting in the US Senate when they had never seen it before. World View My point is that I can understand how people in Europe find it hard to imagine South Africa as being advanced in technology, particularly nuclear technology. So I am for ever seeing articles concerning SMR technology originating around the world which mention potential SMR contenders for world deployment and generally South Africa is never mentioned. So I want to bring all of this to your attention in the hopes that you can mention us whenever possible.
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Other factors are that the exchange rate really is such that it is much cheaper to do virtually anything here. Our prices are so low compared to Europe or the US. Looking for Investors So I am looking for money to build FOAK reactor in Pretoria. We need $470 million to build a reactor which produces electricity. So we are looking for investors. We calculate that later production models will cost about half of that. Note that any investors would go into a private arrangement with a private company. We are fortunate in having an Energy Minister who is very supportive of nuclear, so our political climate is good. Therefore investors will be welcomed and supported. When I spoke to the South African Minister a while ago he was saying that he did not dare give money to my efforts right now because the anti-nuke crowd will probably accuse him of prejudging the issue and bypassing the tender process, and so on. Note that the local greens are significantly supported by European greens and get significant funding from them. There is a government initiative on the table now to install an additional 2,500 MW of nuclear energy to South Africa's existing nuclear power, and the process is following the official pathway. That is why the Minister dare not appear to jump the tender process. He has announced that he hopes that contracts will be awarded by the end of 2023, but my team needs funds now. World Interest I am getting numbers of people calling me from around the world showing interest in potentially funding our development but they all tend to be wary of nuclear developments 'from Africa'. Note that when I was in London I spoke to Rolls-Royce people and they said: 'you South Africans are far ahead of us’. Yet Rolls-Royce is getting all the publicity because they have their traditional name to ride one. Rolls-Royce is promoting Gen III technology (conventional water-cooled) and they plan to build a small conventional PWR. South Africa is way ahead, having pioneered much of the Gen IV gas-cooled technology, and having started 25 years ago. So far about a dozen African countries have officially informed the IAEA that they intend following a nuclear future. During the past year a number of African leaders have made public statements to that effect. A number have contacted us. In other words; a realistic market already exists for the South African reactor, which has been designed for the conditions which such countries could encounter. Fuel 4
South Africa has also developed the fuel. This has been perfected and a small fuel manufacturing facility now stands in a Care and Maintenance state here in Pretoria. Currently part of our Consortium is carrying out fuel development for one of the US SMR projects. The first experimental fuel has been produced successfully. The fuel production is in itself a major potential business, bearing in mind the size of the world SMR market which is sure to develop. So in conclusion, I would very much like you to see if you could mention our developments wherever and whenever you can. To my mind, in decades to come nuclear will be the dominant power source, with SMRs playing a significant role.
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