Nuclear power in Africa

African countries, home to about 20% of the world’s recoverable uranium deposits, are showing growing interest in developing nuclear-energy programs.

Nigeria, Senegal, Uganda and Egypt have all this year expressed a desire to develop nuclear-power programs either to meet power deficits or to diversify their energy sources.

Africa’s electricity demand is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 3.7%, the fastest growth rate outside the eastern Asian region, according to the International Energy Agency. The IEA projects African nuclear power to rise to 15 terawatt hours in 2015 from 11 in 2005.

South Africa, which accounts for 60% of Africa’s total electricity generation and runs a grid that also supplies neighbours such as Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, plans to spend $20 billion to upgrade its power sector, including spending on at least 5 new large-scale nuclear reactors.

Much of South-Africa’s effort is focused on a tiny, low-cost reactor being developed on the coastline just north of Cape Town. The technology is being developed by Pebble Bed Modular Reactor Ltd, which is 15% owned by Westinghouse, a unit of Japan’s Toshiba Corp., and the remainder by South African government and state-owned Eskom.

It uses thousands of tennis ball-sized graphite spheres packed with uranium kernels. Proponents say the pebble bed, once commercialized, can be built more quicky and inexpensively – in two years for about $500 million; it isn’t bound to water for cooling so can be placed virtually anywhere; capacity can be ramped up incrementally to more closely match local energy demand as it arises.

South Africa, home to 7% of the world's recoverable uranium reserves, has also announced plans to enrich and export uranium fuel, while stressing that it would do so under strict compliance with the rules of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Source: WSJ, 13/11/07