It is time for Africa to think outside the box, by thinking inside the atom

Africa is larger than China, the United States and Europe added together – that is a great deal of land. Africa needs social and economic development, and it is well known that one of the most rapid routes to achieve those goals is electrification. The provision of electricity literally puts energy in the hands of many people who can then use their personal talents to develop business and production capability which, in turn, leads to the social upliftment of the entire community. This is not merely theory – it has been proven to be true time and again.

 So we arrive at the inescapable conclusion that the electrification of large parts of Africa, as rapidly as possible, is a real and urgent necessity.

The challenge

So we look at the electrification challenge from the perspective of many African countries, and what do we see? We see large distances between towns and cities – distances unheard of in Europe.

We further note that many African countries are very dependent on hydropower, in some cases completely. African lakes, dams and rivers tend to be large in surface area, but not that deep.

They are very much linked to rainfall patterns so, after a short period of drought, the water levels of the feeder rivers or dams can fall rapidly. A metre loss in height of water can dramatically affect the overall water pressure and the water volume available to produce electricity. Consequently, under drought conditions, hydroelectricity output can fall considerably.

It is most difficult to build a substantial future economy on the basis of a varying national electricity supply. Business and industry require reliable, stable power.

Because hydro plants have to be built where the water supply is situated, that often means they are far from where the power is required. This, in turn, implies the construction of long power lines over African-scale distances.

Furthermore, the number of hydro sites is limited.

So the bottom line of this scenario is that hydropower is not a long-term solution for future African development. There has to be a better solution.

The options

In considering possible alternative power sources for African countries for the immediate future, other than hydro, nuclear power comes out as the most
obvious choice.

Not all countries are blessed with abundant supplies of coal, oil or gas.

Furthermore, the political sentiment around the world is moving against fossil fuels. In addition, fossil fuels – as is the case with hydro – are found in specific locations that may not be conveniently located near the point of demand.

People will say: what about renewable energy sources such as solar and wind? They have their place, but they have been over-hyped and have serious limitations for African countries.

Let us be realistic: One gets wind power when the wind blows, and solar power in the daytime. This reality does not provide a basic formula for a stable reliable electricity supply for business and industry.

In Europe, where a wind power supply only makes up a small fraction of the total supply of a country, it can be viewed as bonus electricity; but African countries cannot afford to make wind power the base of the nations’ industry. It is far too unreliable.

There are no renewable sources that can be relied upon to provide large-scale electricity reliably. So nuclear power presents itself as a very attractive option.

People will say that nuclear is large, complex and expensive. We have to ask: is this true?

Currently, nuclear reactors around the world are on the large side, meaning 1 000 to 2 000 megawatts.

However, new generations of small nuclear reactors, closer to 100MW to 200MW, are under development. It is this type of reactor that will be the answer.

The small reactors, of course, are much cheaper than conventional large ones – very affordable for any country.

Furthermore, nuclear reactors are not as complex as some people make out. Certainly, one needs a few well-qualified nuclear people, but most of the staff of a nuclear reactor are people with ordinary day-to-day qualifications, but who have a frame of mind that gives attention to detail, and they have a great sense of responsibility.

So the operation and ownership of nuclear reactors is not beyond the capability of any country in Africa.

Nuclear fuel

One of the greatest advantages of nuclear power is the fuel. Nuclear fuel required for a reactor is very small in volume and lasts for a very long time. For example, whereas a coal-fired power station of a given size would use half a dozen trainloads of coal per day, an equivalent sized nuclear power plant uses only one truckload of fuel
per year.

Unused fuel is stable for years; in principle, one could stockpile a year’s worth of fuel on site, and so be independent of relying on a road, rail or conveyer belt link being available all the time. The extreme weather events of Africa can easily wash away a road or rail link in a moment.

Because so little nuclear fuel is used, fluctuations in the uranium price have virtually no effect on the price of the fabricated fuel as delivered to the reactor.

Let us ask: what is nuclear fuel?

Nuclear fuel is traditionally uranium, but another fuel is now becoming important – and that is thorium.

Uranium and thorium atoms split to release energy; but to do this, the atoms have to be bound to some chemical and then held in specific places in containers. So uranium fuel is usually in the form of uranium oxide that is made into pellets which, in turn, are housed in metal assemblies known as fuel elements.

Thorium can be housed in fuel elements in the same way, but it can be used in a completely different system in which a thorium-containing salt is melted into liquid and the liquid moves through the reactor core.

The point is that nuclear fuel has to be prepared or fabricated into the form that is required.

Another most important factor is that nuclear fuel looks exactly the same when it comes out of the reactor as it did when it went in. It is not like coal, which burns to produce vast quantities of ash, carbon dioxide as well as other gases as waste products.

In the case of nuclear fuel, the uranium or thorium atoms split to become other atoms as they release energy, but the newly formed atoms stay inside the fuel elements – nothing escapes as waste. The used fuel elements are highly radioactive, but all the radioactive materials are contained within the fuel elements; as long as the fuel elements are handled professionally, they pose no danger.

New unused fuel is hardly radioactive at all, and can be kept easily in storage.

A year’s worth of nuclear fuel for a reactor can be carried in one truck.

What is nuclear waste?

Nuclear waste is classified into three levels of radioactivity: high, medium and low.

High-level waste is spent fuel that is highly radioactive, but all the spent fuel from over 25 years of operation at the South African Koeberg Nuclear Power Station is still stored on site indoors.

Low-level waste consists of gloves, coats, cotton swabs, sheets of paper and anything else that came into contact with radioactive material or could potentially have come into contact with radioactive material. All of this type of waste is sealed in drums and sent to a waste storage site.

Intermediate waste consists of solid objects or chemicals from laboratories, or those materials resulting from maintenance processes, in which the solids or liquids are radioactive. Most of this category is only mildly radioactive. It is stored in containers at a waste repository.

A fundamental policy of the storage of nuclear waste is that any waste laid down in a repository can be picked up and moved, if the authorities should change their mind later and wish to move it. No waste is ‘dumped’ on land or in the sea.

Reactor operation

Nuclear power stations are clean and quiet. As far as the sound is concerned, most people are really quite surprised when they go into a nuclear reactor to find that nothing can be seen moving and it is usually as quiet as a library.

Nuclear power stations are clean; they emit no smoke, soot, carbon dioxide or any other gas. There is no nuclear effluent other than nuclear waste intentionally removed from the site in special vehicles.

Koeberg has a large declared nature reserve immediately adjacent to its main site, and wild animals such as zebra and antelope wander around the grounds around the reactors.

Wind and solar power

Anti-nuclear groups always romantically argue that nuclear power is dangerous and that the real answer is energy sources such as wind and solar.

For starters, the anti-nuclear groups typically project nuclear power as a worst-case nuclear disaster. Such projections are highly exaggerated – the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant incident in Japan showed that clearly. Despite being struck by a wall of water from a tsunami larger than had ever been imagined, not one single member of the public was killed or injured in any way from any nuclear release. The Japanese authorities now admit that the large-scale evacuation of people from the area was a complete overreaction.

Wind and solar are never projected as worst-case scenarios – in fact, always as best-case scenarios.

When a wind farm is quoted as being of 20MW capacity, we are not reminded that 20MW is the capacity and not the output because wind is intermittent. If one gets a real 5MW of electricity out of a 20-megawatt capacity plant, one is lucky.

Recent reports from Europe and the United States indicate that many wind power operations have been producing half of what was expected – figures such as 2MW or 3MW out of a design capacity of 20MW.

Solar power produces direct current, and only when the sun shines. All household appliances run on alternating current electricity, so the solar output has to be converted for household use. The list goes on.

The bottom line is that the expensive solar and wind options have been oversold by their advocates. But they are failing to meet expectations. They have inherent and permanent limitations.

Macro, midi and mini reactors

Most nuclear power plants in the world provide large macro-scale output in the 1 000MW to 2 000MW order of magnitude. Such reactors were developed to provide economy of scale.

Modern thinking, however, is that there is a major market for what one may call midi and mini reactors. These are reactors in the 200MW range – or smaller at, say, 80MW. Such reactors are very suited to being placed near towns, mining operations or industrial areas.

A number of small reactor designs are being developed, not requiring large-scale water cooling so that they do not need to be built near the coast or on large bodies of water. They can, in essence, be placed near the point of power demand. This eliminates the need for costly long-distance, high-voltage power lines.

These small reactor designs do not need to be shut down for refuelling; they have mechanisms to allow fresh fuel to be added as the reactor continues to run.

In addition, these reactors have been designed so that it is impossible for them to suffer a core meltdown. It is important to note that the fundamental physics of the design is such that the core cannot melt. So there is no chance of a significant radiation emission escaping from the plant in the event of some major incident such as the tsunami in Japan.

Judging by the renewed world interest in nuclear power, very many countries of all shapes and sizes are going to want to become nuclear countries. Most countries do not have coastlines or conveniently placed large bodies of water to use for reactor cooling, so the development of smaller reactors that do not require large water cooling seems an obvious choice.

Time horizons

So the question is: when will various nuclear reactors be ready for deployment? The traditional large reactors are ready right now; in fact, quite a number are now under construction.

As far as delivery dates for the smaller reactors are concerned, they are much closer than many people realise, with estimates being that reactors will be available and operating within five years.

In terms of construction, a period of five years is around the corner, so any country wishing to go nuclear needs to start now, if it has not already done so. Countries need to develop a national nuclear regulator and need to start the process of identifying potential power station sites. Site allocation can take five years by the time all geological studies and other scientific investigations are complete.

Time horizons are close, and nuclear is the future, so action is required now. The technological landscape is changing fast – the future is not what it used to be.

Dr Kelvin Kemm

Dr Kemm is a nuclear physicist and chief executive of Stratek Business Strategy Consultants based in Pretoria. He has an interest in energy matters in general and regularly gives presentations on such issues, and on other strategy matters. He has been awarded the Lifetime Achievers Award by the National Science and Technology Forum. He serves on the board of the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow based in Washington, DC, and in 2001 was listed in the Marquis “Who’s Who in the World”.