Russian group thinks nuclear power still has a future in South Africa

Russia’s State-owned nuclear corporation Rosatom still believes that nuclear energy has a place in the future development of South Africa. This follows comments made by Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba on Wednesday (Budget Day), which suggested that the country’s planned programme to build a fleet of new nuclear power plants (NPP) had been significantly postponed. “[F]or the foreseeable future we don’t see South Africa needing nuclear [power],” he said in answer to a question. He emphasised that a new NPP programme was not currently affordable, because of the weak financial position of both the Government and national electricity utility Eskom. Furthermore, the country currently enjoyed an electricity surplus. As a result, there was no intent to pursue a new NPP programme. And when the electricity supply-and-demand balance was restored, the new demand would be addressed by “the least-cost measures”.