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Jaro, Friends I’m sorry! I got to
this item linking from this current news item. Note that 10 billion rand = about 1.6
billion US dollars J 24 units = 2640 MWe for R25 billion = $US
4 billion is ~1500/MWe I wonder how that will hold up? Regards, Jim From:
mbrexchange-admin@list.ans.org [mailto:mbrexchange-admin@list.ans.org] On Behalf Of Franta, Jaroslav Jim, Looking
at the date at the bottom, I see that this is old news, dating from June 2003 !
Jaro SA Will
Have To Spend Billions For Sustainable Nuke Power South
Africa would have to spend R25 billion on the proposed pebble-bed nuclear power
project before it would be viable, Independent Online reported on Monday. It said
this emerged from an international report on the economic impact of the
envisioned pebble bed modular reactor (PBMR). The
report says if the project goes ahead, South Africans might have to pay for
"a series of expensive white elephants". The cost
of a PBMR demonstration plant, planned to be built at Koeberg has risen from R2
billion in 1999 to R14 billion now. This
excludes the decommissioning costs, which would be at least R5 billion. The
report written by Steve Thomas of the Public Service International Research
Unit at the It will
be part of a submission by Earthlife Africa to the environmental affairs
department. The
department was ordered by the Thomas
said economic forecasts by the PBMR company had not been updated since 1998 and
were "implausibly optimistic". Thomas
said there was "nothing remotely close to a firm order" from overseas
for a pebble bed reactor. The main
expected export market was Exelon
chief executive John Rowe said the reason for the withdrawal was that "the
project was three years behind schedule and was too speculative". French
nuclear company Areva also indicated it was not prepared to fund the demo
plant. Thomas
said the project's economic risks were likely to fall squarely on the South
African public. Thomas, a
member of the panel, said panellists had been "required to promise not to
disclose any information" about the report. The Legal
Resources Centre has tried under the Access to Information Act to get the
minerals and energy department to release the document, but it has refused to
do so. Peter
Bradford, former commissioner of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
peer-reviewed Thomas's report this month. His only criticism was that Thomas
had been "conservative" in his concerns. He had
also not considered that the Chinese pebble bed design or the Areva prismatic
nuclear design were likely to be competitors for whatever market developed for
the pebble beds. Earthlife
Africa will make its presentation to the environmental portfolio committee on
the PBMR on Tuesday. |