SA turns to nuclear option to plug power deficit

THE South African government recently revealed plans to employ the use of nuclear energy to address its electricity issues. However, South Africa's Minister of Electricity and Energy Kgosientsho Ramokgopa relayed that this operation would be handled at a pace South African authorities can afford. Very recently, South Africans reported an uninterrupted 100-day power supply.

Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, recently disclosed that South Africa plans to develop its nuclear capacity to address its electricity concerns. Speaking to the media on the sidelines of the Cabinet Lekgotla held in Tshwane during the weekend, as reported by the SA news agency, the minister noted that the country would build a nuclear plant for electricity generation at “a scale and speed that we can afford.”

“In the long term, we need to ensure that we anchor the baseload and nuclear power is an important part of that intervention. We are working on the framework for procurement because we don’t want to discredit the process through a procurement process that is not transparent. We will do it at the scale and speed that we can afford as a country,” he said.

“The poor and those that are located in the townships are finding it exceptionally difficult to afford the increases in electricity. The pricing and the tariff is prohibitive and a lot of our people across the length and breadth of the country are not in a position to afford electricity,” he added, raising concerns about the power challenges poorer communities face.Those are challenges on the distribution side… and we know that over a period of time, municipalities have underinvested in the maintenance, replenishment, and protection of the distribution grid and of course, we are paying the price now,” the minister stated.—