{"id":9565,"date":"2012-04-02T15:47:29","date_gmt":"2012-04-02T13:47:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/04\/s-africa-considers-nuclear-fuel-cycle-facilities\/"},"modified":"2012-04-02T15:47:29","modified_gmt":"2012-04-02T13:47:29","slug":"s-africa-considers-nuclear-fuel-cycle-facilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/s-africa-considers-nuclear-fuel-cycle-facilities\/","title":{"rendered":"S.Africa considers nuclear fuel cycle facilities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Wendell Roelf<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">CAPE TOWN, April 2<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa is mulling the<br \/>\nre-establishment of its uranium enrichment and conversion<br \/>\nfacilities, which were dismantled during the apartheid era, as<br \/>\nit seeks to secure fuel for a new fleet of nuclear power<br \/>\nstations.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Africa&#8217;s largest economy, which announced more than 40 years<br \/>\nago that it would enrich uranium as part of a military-linked<br \/>\nstrategy during the Cold War, wants another 9,600 megawatts of<br \/>\nnuclear energy to help shore up a power grid under pressure from<br \/>\nrising demand and decades of under investment.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The studies confirmed that fuel for the power reactor fleet<br \/>\nshould be manufactured in South Africa for reasons of security<br \/>\nof supply when the nuclear component is expected to be around 13<br \/>\npercent of installed capacity,&#8221; Chantal Janneker, Necsa&#8217;s group<br \/>\nspokeswoman, told Reuters.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Necsa, the country&#8217;s nuclear energy corporation, is being<br \/>\nencouraged to revive its participation in the nuclear value<br \/>\nchain &#8211; including enrichment, conversion and nuclear fuel<br \/>\nmanufacturing &#8211; to reduce South Africa&#8217;s current dependence on<br \/>\nimported reactor fuels.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The country has some of the world&#8217;s largest uranium deposits<br \/>\nand the new nuclear fleet is likely to use 465 metric tonnes of<br \/>\nenriched uranium a year by 2030.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Earlier feasibility studies have shown that the fuel<br \/>\nrequirements of a nuclear reactor fleet of about 10,000<br \/>\nmegawatts makes uranium enrichment a viable undertaking,&#8221;<br \/>\nJanneker said.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Necsa will investigate developing its own enrichment<br \/>\ntechnology or partner with an international company.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>However, power utility Eskom, which oversees the continent&#8217;s<br \/>\nonly nuclear power station Koeberg near Cape Town, said the plan<br \/>\nwas for the enrichment facilities to develop together, and not<br \/>\nahead, of the expansion programme so that fuel production plants<br \/>\ncan be economically sustainable.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Wendell Roelf CAPE TOWN, April 2 (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa is mulling the re-establishment of its uranium enrichment and conversion facilities, which were dismantled during the apartheid era, as it seeks to secure fuel for a new fleet of nuclear power stations. Africa&#8217;s largest economy, which announced more than 40 years ago that it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-9565","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9565\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}