The Nuclear Industry Association of South Africa, applauds and welcomes the Minister of Energy’s announcements at his most recent media briefing held in Pretoria on the 26th of September, 2013. The Minister said, “The nature of our task and responsibility is that we should ensure energy security in South Africa, which necessitates a robust exchange of information, expertise and ideas”. NIASA fully supports these objectives. NIASA’s mandate is to promote nuclear power generation as part of South Africa’s energy mix. We believe that investment in nuclear power goes beyond this mandate and will lift South Africa to a new level of human capacity and high technology growth.  

Investment in nuclear power generation will
• promote economic growth and development through the localisation initiatives already underway
• provide quality energy services that are secure, sustainable efficient and competitively priced
• facilitate and encourages local production of energy technology to support job creation
• help South Africa to realise social equity through expanded access to electricity
• assist in the quest for environmental sustainability through efforts to reduce pollution and to mitigate the effect of climate change.

Although nuclear and renewables are more expensive than coal and gas to build, they are cheaper to run. Nuclear decommissioning costs amount to about 16% of construction costs, and these are built upfront into the project financing.  Nuclear fuel costs amount to approximately 5% of the overall generation costs, which are therefore insensitive to uranium price escalation.  South Africa has at least 5% of the world’s uranium – enough for the lifetimes of well over 40 Koeberg-type reactors.  For future generation reactor types our uranium and thorium can be used in tandem. This will provide us with power far into the future! 

NIASA strongly supports the energy portfolio adopted in the IRP2010. Nuclear power is ideal for base-load operation supplemented by wind and solar energy, whereas during peak periods, pumped storage and gas are appropriate.
NIASA commits to work in close partnership with the Department of Energy and Government in order to ensure safe, secure and sustainable energy for South Africa to enable inclusive transformative economic development. We welcome the invitation by the government to provide quality advice on the nuclear build.

 In order to have a successful nuclear program, NIASA will assist the Department to address any concerns by sectors of the public. These concerns are often   based on the perceived risks of a ‘complex technology only understood by a few scientists and engineers’. The public is currently inundated with myths about nuclear technology from anti-nuclear activists, whose arguments are not fact based. Proper consultation with the communities likely to be affected by the programme should be done, based on proper balanced information.
Nuclear is not the whole answer, but needs to be part of the answer!