The South African Cabinet has approved a nuclear power procurement option for the country's Department of Energy that opens the door for assessing proposals for 9.6GW of electricity from nuclear power, Business Day is reporting.
One media source, News24, says the decision cements a deal with Russia to buy eight nuclear reactors, but Business Day says the deal with Russia is not set in stone. “There is also deep suspicion that the procurement will be corrupt, with Russia claiming some time ago that it had already struck a deal with South Africa,” says Business Day, which goes on to say that a request for proposals can be issued “immediately” and that “nuclear vendors will respond to the call with proposals that will include pricing and financing models, after which negotiations will begin.”
The insinuation that corruption was in play was cast into relief with the news that South Africa's Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene was fired immediately after the Cabinet meeting, which was the last one scheduled for this year. Nene had called for a publicly transparent process for reviewing bids.
Business Day also reports that there have been several independent and government-commissioned feasibility studies for nuclear power done and that there has not been a consensus among them. The government's three studies remain classified, while three independent studies by the Energy Research Center at the University of Cape Town, the Center for Scientific and Industrial Research and by an engineer at the University of Stellenbosch all concluded that nuclear power was more expensive than other options.