 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Cape Town (AFP) May 26, 2011 Energy-hungry South Africa said Thursday it would not abandon plans to scale up nuclear power despite the meltdown in March at the Fukushima plant in Japan. The state wants to ramp up nuclear sources to 20 percent of electricity capacity to help break the country's massive reliance on coal and boost its ageing power grid that led to widespread blackouts in early 2008. "The nuclear transaction needs to be commenced well in time so that we can commission the power by 2023," Minister Dipuo Peters said in her budget speech to parliament on Thursday. South Africa plans to build 9,600 megawatts of new nuclear capacity in the next two decades. "We still believe that to mitigate against greenhouse gases, nuclear is going to play a very important role. However we are going to factor in the lessons learned from Fukushima," energy director general Nelisiwe Magubane told AFP. The country's new power project guidelines were given the nod five days after Japan's deadly March tsunami, which forced a global re-think on nuclear power after damage to the Fukushima plant's cooling systems triggered the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl 25 years ago. "For us the accident at Fukushima has happened at a time that makes it possible for South Africa to factor the appropriate lessons into the design of our nuclear power programme, and to take advantage of experiences from other countries," Peters said. Stress tests are to be developed for the country's only existing nuclear plant, Koeberg in Cape Town, while officials say the country is receiving constant updates from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on lessons from Fukushima. The new electricity mix calls for renewable energy to account for nine percent of power generation and cuts coal's share from 90 percent to 65 percent. The targets are part of the government's electricity master plan, which will underpin South Africa's power generation for the next 20 years.
Share This Article With Planet Earth
Related Links Nuclear Power News - Nuclear Science, Nuclear Technology Powering The World in the 21st Century at Energy-Daily.com
Japan retired nuclear workers ready for dutyTokyo (AFP) May 25, 2011 A group of retired Japanese nuclear and civil engineers are hoping to report back for duty for one last mission - to stabilise the radiation-leaking Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. More than 160 engineers, including many former atomic plant workers, aged 60 or older say they want to set up a "Skilled Veterans Corps" to help restore the cooling systems crippled by the March 11 earthqu ... read more |
|
|
| The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2010 - SpaceDaily. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement |
del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
YahooMyWeb
Google
Facebook
