Private communication to John Shanahan for public information.
Status of nuclear power and radioisotope production in South Africa as of June 2022 Kelvin Kemm June 27, 2022 The US initiated its Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in 1946, South Africa initiated its Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa (Necsa) in 1948. We had nuclear development policies and plans in place in the early 1950s. We have been in nuclear for a long time. This is not only nuclear power, but also a wide range of nuclear technology. For example, South Africa is the second-largest exporter of nuclear medicine in the world, exporting to 62 countries. The US is a major customer. We export twice a day, every day. Nuclear Power Conditions But back to nuclear power: South Africa has operated a 2000MW nuclear power station on the southern coast for almost 40 years. It is Koeberg and it produces South Africa's cheapest electricity. South Africa is a large country, as large as the whole of Western Europe added together. The distance from Pretoria, where I live, to Cape Town is the same as Rome to London. Why I point this out is that our circumstances are very different to those of Europe. Yet people like Germans keep coming here to talk us into 'doing it the right way, like their way.' They then bully African countries into adopting things like wind and solar energy systems, to 'save the Planet', which just don't work in our conditions. To my mind those systems don't work in Germany either, but they certainly don't work here. The whole cost structure is different too. For example, in South Africa we have the highest voltage (760 000 kV) longest range (1,500 km) highest-altitude (2000 m) power lines in the world, in one of the highest lightning incidence areas in the world. Power lines cost a lot of money to build. In Germany transmission distances are tiny by comparison, so transmission costs there are rather different to what they cost here, but we never ever see foreigners taking that into account. We have other interesting challenges too. For example; as I write, it in a couple of days past Midwinter and the temperature at midday is 13C but there's not a cloud in the sky 1