Dr Kelvin Kemm, chairman of Stratek Global said at the Mining Indaba 2024 that South Africa can be a nuclear reactor exporting country. As a world leader in reactor development and the first country globally to start developing a commercial small modular reactor, we are in the position to build a prototype.
The South African reactor, the HTMR-100, has been designed to be ideal for deployment in remote areas. The reactor does not need a large body of water for cooling purposes since it is cooled using helium gas. This was a very intentional South African design decision to enable extreme versatility, particularly with African countries in mind. Such reactors are affordable and can be owned by governments, provinces, municipalities and private companies, such as mining companies.
Dr Kemm said that over the past year, much interest has been shown in the local reactor internationally. He revealed that Stratek Global is in advanced talks with more than one foreign funder to raise R10-billion privately. Foundation agreements have already been signed with more than one company.
Dr Kemm revealed that a dozen African countries have already formally notified the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of their intention to follow a nuclear future. Dr Kemm said that any African country can afford a small modular reactor (SMR) and can operate one without any problem. It is a myth that nuclear is only destined for large wealthy countries.
Foreign countries are poaching South African nuclear professionals at an alarming rate. For example, in the UAE, 160 South Africans are currently working on the new Barakah nuclear plant there, and in the US, whole teams of nuclear engineers are South African.
If South African leaders do not exhibit some leadership now then we risk losing more of our people and losing a fantastic opportunity to become exporters of nuclear reactors.
He emphasised that South Africa exporting the locally developed HTMR-100 does not mean that we would also not build large nuclear reactors in collaboration with foreign suppliers. An SMR produces 35MW of electricity in comparison to about 1 400MW produced by a large reactor, such as those at Koeberg.