Does the rational basis for nuclear energy procurement in South Africa involve Bill Gates?    

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  • South Africa’s Ministry of Energy and Electricity, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, presented to Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Electricity and Energy earlier this month on the country’s 2500MW nuclear new build programme.
  • Ramokgopa said they were considering all options, including small modular reactors.
  • Bill Gates recently announced that he may be sourcing high-assay low-enriched uranium from South Africa to fuel his small module nuclear power plant in the USA.

In August 2021 NERSA approved the 2500MW nuclear procurement plan which was gazetted in the 2019 Integrated Resource Plan by the then-energy minister, Gwede Mantashe. In December 2023, Mantashe announced that South Africa would launch a bidding process in 2024 for the new nuclear capacity which was fundamentally flawed. The two most likely sites to host the new capacity are Duynefontein, near Koeberg, and Thyspunt in the Eastern Cape.

Last month Ramokgopa announced that the Ministerial Determination for the procurement of 2 500MW of nuclear energy, has been withdrawn because public comments had not been sought and the procedure had not been fair. Read more

During the Government of National Unity (GNU) Nuclear seminar held a week after his parliament address, Ramokgopa noted that the global move towards using nuclear energy is a “return to realism”. In the same week, on the 11TH of September South Africa’s nuclear energy plant, Koeberg implemented an emergency shutdown of Unit 1 after isolation/block valve failure.

Related news: Koeberg Unit 1 shut down after isolation/block valves failure

Many civil society organisations and academic groups maintain that there is no rational basis for nuclear procurement in South Africa which is open to mismanagement, corruption, lengthy build time and massive cost overruns.

A utility in Georgia USA recently commissioned the first two scratch-built American reactors in a generation built in the USA at a cost of nearly US $35 billion. The price tag for the expansion of Plant Vogtle from two of the traditional large reactors to four includes US$17 billion in cost overruns.

Ramokgopa assured parliament that the revised methodology is a bottom-up approach which starts with the people and also includes market testing through a Request for Information, an analysis of potential ownership and financing models, and ongoing engagement with the National Nuclear Regulator.

The latest tech on small module reactors requires high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) enrichment and deconversion facilities have monopolized the nuclear fuel cycle conversation lately. Bill Gates recently announced that he was going to source the HALEU from South Africa. Mining houses in South Africa have been producing enriched uranium for many decades. Read more

HALEU is enriched to levels of up to 20%, compared with about 5% for the fuel that powers most existing reactors. Until recently it was made in commercial amounts only in Russia, but the United States wants to produce it to fuel a new wave of reactors.

Gate’s project commissioning has been extended from 2028 to 2030 because of the fuel supply, with Russia’s war against Ukraine changing the calculus.  “Suppliers in the United Kingdom and South Africa, along with an eventual supply from uranium mines in the U.S. and Canada will allow the project to go forward”, he said.

“We can go to the free world and meet our fuel requirements,” Gates said. “And so now building up the alternate plan, with the federal government helping us figure that out, that’s now completely in place.” Read more

Gates has invested US$1 billion of his own money into the nuclear power plant that broke ground in Kemmerer, Wyo recently. The new facility, designed by the Gates-founded TerraPower, will be smaller than traditional fission nuclear power plants and, in theory, safer because it will use sodium instead of water to cool the reactor’s core.

TerraPower estimates the plant could be built for up to US$4 billion (R70 billion), the other US$3 billion coming from the US government.

While there is no immediate connection between Bill Gates’s nuclear energy venture and South Africa’s nuclear procurement programme, the new generation technology and the fact that HALEU can be supplied locally, there is potential for synergy. However, South Africa’s loyalties lie with the BRICS countries and HALEU poses security risks because it could be used without further enrichment as fissile material in nuclear weapons. Will we see Russia or China offering the new nuclear generation technology in South Africa’s nuclear procurement programme, along with the USA?

Author: Bryan Groenendaal

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