Tag: nuclear power

SA’s energy policy for Neanderthals, says Free Market Foundation

Executive director of the Free Market Foundation, Leon Louw says the return of nuclear power run by the current government will be a ‘catastrophe’.

“This government has shown conclusively that it is unable to manage electricity … Nuclear will make the disasters of Medupi and Kusile seem small,” he told The Citizen newspaper.

Louw says he is not principally opposed to nuclear and sees it as a safe and reliable option. However, he’s concerned about nuclear energy investment remaining in government hands.

He has also cautioned that it could also be wide open to kickbacks.

“The only way we can have nuclear is to let private investors risk their own money for which we are not responsible. That’s happening worldwide. Pouring government money into it is irresponsible.

“Taxpayers will end up paying. We are sitting with a dinosaur model, what I’d call an ‘energy policy for Neanderthals’,” said Louw.

Estimates for the programme’s costs are around R1 trillion, with output ambitions indicating three nuclear plants will have to be built.

Louw’s other concern is that nuclear will take far too long to build. He estimates seven years, but in South Africa’s labour climate it could take much longer.

In his address to Parliament earlier this month, President Jacob Zuma said nuclear had the possibility of generating well over 9000MW.

 

Russia to build 8 nuclear reactors in Iran

bushehrRussia plans to sign a contract with Iran this year to build two more nuclear reactors at its Bushehr power plant as part of a broader deal for up to eight reactors in the Islamic state, a source close to the negotiations told Reuters on Thursday.

Western powers want any lasting agreement with Iran to put to rest suspicions that it could develop nuclear weapons-making ability through enrichment. Iran denies any such intent.

The talks ended last week with little progress; they are to resume in Vienna in June.

Russia, one of the six powers, built Iran’s only operating nuclear power reactor, at Bushehr.

“Russia and Iran may sign an intergovernmental agreement this year on building from four to eight nuclear reactors, and, under the deal, the contract for the construction of the first two reactors as additions to Bushehr,” the source said.

Source: Reuters

Zim to supply Iran with uranium

Mugabe greets Iranian counterpart
Mugabe greets Ahmadinejad

Zimbabwe has breached international sanctions with an agreement to supply Iran with uranium to fuel its nuclear programme.

Zimbabwean Deputy Mining Minister Gift Chimanikire said: “I have seen [a memorandum of understanding] to export uranium to the Iranians.”

The agreement, which was reportedly signed in 2012, is likely to cause alarm in western capitals.

The United States and the European Union have imposed crippling sanctions on Iran over its declared nuclear programme.

Zimbabwe is also subject to international sanctions over its human rights record and conduct of elections.

A report compiled by the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog more than two years ago detailed a visit from Iran’s then Foreign and Co-operative Ministers to Zimbabwe to strike a deal, with the Iranians also sending engineers to assess uranium deposits

President Robert Mugabe, who won another five-year term in disputed polls in July, has publicly backed Iran’s nuclear drive.

During a visit by Iran’s then president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to Harare in April 2010, Mugabe said his guest should be assured of “Zimbabwe’s continuous support of Iran’s just cause on the nuclear issue”.

He said the uranium deal had been made without his knowledge, and was only known to a handful of people at the top of the government.

A Chinese company has been surveying yellow-cake deposits in the far northeast of the country and the Zimbabwe government has been actively looking for buyers, according to Chimanikire, who, as a member of Zimbabwe’s opposition is likely to be replaced now that the election has brought an end to the shaky coalition government.

Uranium ore, or yellow cake, can be converted to a uranium gas which is then processed into nuclear fuel or enriched to make nuclear weapons.

Iran has long maintained that it needs the uranium for peaceful nuclear aspirations, as a source of domestic energy.

Mugabe has begun his seventh term as Zimbabwe president following an election once again stained by accusations of widespread vote rigging

Despite the agreement, analysts have said it was likely to be a long time before Zimbabwe’s uranium reserves were ready for export. – Sapa