Is Africa’s Nuclear Power Renaissance Heading Into An Abyss?
South Africa, which currently relies on coal for more than 85 percent of its electricity, wants to wean itself off fossil fuels by using more nuclear power by 2030. Kenya, Nigeria, and other sub-Saharan countries have similar aspirations and are not far behind.
It’s a gutsy move for South Africa. Nuclear power plant construction has stagnated worldwide.
South Africa President Jacob Zuma said in his Feb. 13 State of the Nation address, “We expect to conclude the procurement of 9,600 megawatts of nuclear energy…Having evaluated the risks and opportunities, the final regulations will be released soon and will be followed by the processing and granting of licenses.”
The $37-billion nuclear expansion is part of South Africa’s Integrated Resources Plan (IRP), a 20-year strategy to balance electricity supply and demand.
Nuclear power plant construction has stagnated worldwide, according to an October 2013 report from U.S.-based Worldwatch Institute.
Nuclear is the only mainstream power source – including all of the renewables and all the fossil fuels – that is stagnant and has actually had negative growth, said Alexander Ochs, director of the Climate and Energy Program at Worldwatch Institute, in an AFKInsider interview.
The reason for that stagnation of nuclear? It’s not that countries are forbidden to build them — it’s simply economics, Ochs said. Utilities are unwilling to carry the high costs and the high risks.
South Africa has the only nuclear power plant in Africa, operating two 900-megawatt nuclear reactors at Koeberg. It produces around 5 percent of its electricity, according to the South African Department of Energy.
Construction of Koeberg began in 1976, with Unit 1 added to the grid in April 1984, followed by Unit 2 in July 1985. In August 2002, Greenpeace activists were arrested and fined after scaling the power plant wall to hang up an anti-nuclear protest banner. Since then, sporadic anti-nuclear campaigns against Koeberg have continued, led by Earthlife Africa, Koeberg Alert and Greenpeace Africa.
“There is a lot of a emotion around the whole nuclear issue,” said Cornelis van der Waal, head of energy at research firm Frost & Sullivan, in an AFKInsider interview. “I think if we look at it from an opportunity side, just the cold facts…it’s cleaner than coal, it has a very long life span, so you invest now and you have energy for the next 60 years.”
New Nuclear Plants For South Africa
South Africa is taking its nuclear power expansion seriously. A team from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency reviewed South Africa’s nuclear infrastructure in 2013 to help assess the status of its nuclear infrastructure.
It is the agency’s role to help countries that choose to use nuclear power do so as safely and securely as possible, said Greg Webb, public information officer at the International Atomic Energy Agency, in an AFKInsider interview. “The decision whether to use nuclear power is a national decision, and the responsibility for nuclear safety and security rests with each country.”
In the week following Japan’s 2011 tsunami and Fukushima nuclear crisis, the South African government announced its intention to build 9.6 gigawatts of new nuclear power no later than 2030. But since then, some government agencies have questioned the program.
The Nuclear Industry Association of South Africa commissioned a review of the Integrated Resources Plan submitted Feb. 12 by Dawid E. Serfontein of the School of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering at North West University, South Africa, that had some surprising conclusions.
The review found that the nuclear decision could be delayed due to revised demand projections that suggest no new nuclear base-load capacity is needed until after 2025.
NIASA does not advise holding off nuclear expansion, said M.Z Knox Msebenzi, managing director of the Nuclear Industry Association of South Africa, in an AFKInsider interview. “Our position is clear. We would like the government to make the decision as quickly as possible,” Msebenzi said.
In fact Zuma insisted in his State of the Nation address a day after the review was completed that the government is moving ahead with the procurement of new nuclear energy.
“I’m just not sure why you would go down a nuclear route, which is extremely expensive,” Worldwatch Institute’s Ochs told AFKInsider. “You’re not building a nuclear power plant in a couple years. It’s a 15-year project. South Africa has a lot of coal left. I’m not a huge fan of getting the coal out of the ground and burning it, but it gives you time for a transitional strategy towards renewable technologies that are actually using the enormous potentials that you have in the country. To me it doesn’t make any sense.”
Greenpeace Africa is also asking what use South Africa has for the “dated, dirty and needlessly expensive coal and nuclear energy” when alternative energy sources can address environmental concerns, job creation and sustainable energy and development, said Michael Onyeka O’brien, executive director of Greenpeace Africa, in an AFKInsider report.
Another question is whether expanding nuclear power threatens South Africa’s ambitious renewable energy program and can co-exist on the grid with intermittent energy sources like wind and solar.
“This is not a technology that works well with intermittent resources,” Ochs told AFKInsider. “To ramp up a nuclear power plant and then drive it down again to take it off the grid — even with hypermodern ones, it takes two or three days.”
Nuclear, wind and solar energy won’t necessarily compete against each other, said Frost & Sullivan’s van der Waal. “At this stage, they want to diversify the energy mix and move away from 90-percent coal to a variety of other technologies as well. But maybe, in short, I think we can’t afford nuclear and that there are better alternatives that we should consider.”
If you want to address intermittency, natural gas is the smartest way to go because — almost like a stove at home — you can turn the gas on and off and in a very short response time, Ochs said. “And from an economic standpoint even more so, because these (nuclear plants) have to run all the time. So then that leads you to a situation where you have a lot of wind or solar and you’re producing at peak and you can’t use this electricity because you have your nuclear power plants on.”
Global Industry Interest
South Africa’s $37-billion proposed nuclear plan has attracted nuclear power firms around the globe. It would be South Africa’s single biggest procurement to date.
“The next step really is about the announcement for the procurement process.” Msebenzi said. “The government has its own timetable and we in the industry are very eager to hear it, but we will not pressure the government to make an announcement.”
So far, France’s Areva, Toshiba’s Westinghouse Electric Corp., China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Corp., Russia’s Rosatom Corp. and Korea Electric Power Corp. have all expressed interest.
The fact that Eskom — the South African electricity public utility — is nationally owned may have a lot to do with the heightened interest in South Africa’s expensive nuclear power plant expansion.
“In a privatized market, you wouldn’t find a company that really would be willing to do this,” Ochs said. “It’s two things really: it’s the scale, it’s the simple amount of how much these things cost, and secondly the investment risk that goes with it, which is a long list of risks that you’re confronted with if you build a nuclear power plant.”
The upfront cost is substantial, van der Waal said. And with the long life of a nuclear power plant, there’s a lot of security and natural disaster issues that need to be managed.
China, which already signed nuclear development agreements with South Africa in 2006 and 2010, has expanded those agreements. The draft China agreement in February includes skills development and capacity building, research and development, the new nuclear build program, supplier development and localization, joint marketing, supply of nuclear energy products and infrastructure funding to promote regional nuclear power developments.
South African students will be able to attend Chinese universities to study nuclear energy, according to a skills development agreement signed Feb. 25. by the South African Nuclear Energy Corp.; the China General Nuclear Power Corp. and the State Nuclear Power Technology Corp.
Russia is also aggressively seeking a piece of South Africa’s nuclear expansion.
At the March 2013 BRICS summit, Zuma and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a joint strategic partnership agreement.
And Russian state-owned firm Rosatom, which opened a marketing office in Sandton in 2012, and accounts for 17 percent of the global nuclear fuel market, also signed a skills and capacity-building agreement in November 2013.
Following South Africa’s lead, Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana are moving forward with their own nuclear programs.
Nigeria
Nigeria is the furthest along towards the introduction of nuclear power to deal with its energy deficit. It began work on its first research reactor at Ahmadu Bello University in 2004.
Nigeria is building a national nuclear power infrastructure, F. Erepamo Osaisai, CEO of the Nigeria Nuclear Regulatory Agency, told the International Atomic Energy Agency at an annual meeting in September. The site of the country’s first set of nuclear power plants has been narrowed down to two: in Geregu/Ajaokuta in Kogi State in the North-Central zone, and Itu in Akwa Ibom State in the South-South part of the country. They are undergoing further detailed evaluation and assessment.
“Nigeria has also put in place a Nuclear Waste Management Policy, and we have started the development of facilities for the comprehensive management of low and intermediate-level radioactive wastes,” Osaisai told the IAEA.
In mid-2010, Nigeria established a target of 1,000 megawatts of nuclear capacity by 2019, with another 4,000 megawatts by 2030.
In June 2012, Russian firm Rosatom signed a memo of understanding with the Nigerian Atomic Energy Commission to “prepare a comprehensive program of building nuclear power plants in Nigeria,” including the development of infrastructure and regulations for nuclear and radiation safety, according to the World Nuclear Association.
Kenya
In February 2014, the Kenyan government confirmed plans to pursue nuclear power to meet the country’s energy needs. This is in tune with Kenya’s Vision 2030, the long-term development blueprint to “transform Kenya into a newly industrializing, middle-income country providing a high quality of life to all its citizens by 2030 in a clean and secure environment whilst making the country globally competitive.” Under the plan, the biggest challenge is energy to meet the “envisioned rapid industrialization and adoption of manufacturing.”
To meet that challenge, Kenya — which has been dealing with frequent power blackouts due to higher demand — is hoping its first 1,000-megawatt nuclear plant will be commissioned by 2024, with additional plants of 1,000 megawatts each online by 2026, 2029 and 2031.
The critical need for nuclear energy is driven by rising demand for power due to the accelerated investment in the economy, according to the Feb. 24 final draft of Kenya’s National Energy Policy.The plan further notes that “the introduction of nuclear plants into the grid is justified by the demand for electricity within the Eastern Africa power pool (EAPP).”
Kenya’s shift towards nuclear power began in 2010, leading to the formation of a Nuclear Electricity Project Committee, which was replaced by the Kenya Nuclear Electricity Board in November 2012.
And since 2011, the government has been sponsoring 15 students annually to study nuclear science at the University of Nairobi.
Though the site of Kenya’s first reactor has not been agreed on, the first nuclear power plant may be located at either a coastal region or near Lake Victoria due to the large amounts of water required to cool nuclear power plants. The Kenya Nuclear Electricity Board is doing a pre-feasibility study to address key technical issues.
Ghana
In April 2007, the government of Ghana announced plans to pursue nuclear power to secure its future energy supply. In 2012, the progression toward a 1,000-megawatt facilitywas dubbed “in the long term,” and not before 2030, according to the World Nuclear Association. That same year, the Ministry of Energy established the Ghana Nuclear Power Program Organization and the Ministry of Energy & Petroleum signed a cooperation agreement with Russia to help build up Ghana’s infrastructure for the eventual addition of nuclear power.
South Africa Lessons
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, no matter where a nuclear plant is built, the challenges remain the same: finances, human resources, and establishment of a legal and regulatory framework.
“The IAEA is a supporting partner, but not, as sometimes mistakenly thought, nuclear regulator that can decide what countries can and cannot do,” Webb said. “Hence, we would not have an opinion on the nuclear plans of any IAEA member state, including Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa.”
Nuclear power advocates in the U.S., U.K., and elsewhere point to nuclear power as a “clean” power source to eliminate climate-changing carbon emissions.
South Africa, with its reliance on coal, is no exception, even as it leads the world in renewable wind and solar energy projects that are up and running in a year or two. This has left some energy analysts baffled as to why any country would invest billions of dollars in nuclear power plants that take 15 years just to build.
“I think from a straightforward opportunity point of view, nuclear still holds a lot of potential,” van der Waal said. “But having said that, I think that for South Africa — at present the only country in Africa that does have nuclear capability — it is sort of a bragging right, if you want to call that. I think, to some extent, it is a little bit to do with ego as well, for us to be able to say that ‘we can do nuclear, we are in the leagues of major countries in the world.’”