South Africa to reprocess spent nuclear fuel

Eskom wants ship it overseas to make MOX fuel

South Africa is seeking commercial contracts with foreign countries to reprocess spent nuclear fuel. Currently, the electric utility has about 1,000 tons of it. The current inventory of spent nuclear fuel comes from a single reactor at Koeberg.

Potential contractors for the job are France, Japan, and the U.K. There is no plans to build a reprocessing plant in South Africa. Moreover, the resulting MOX fuel could be sold to other countries rather than used at home.

Paying for a new build

Eskom has plans to spend upwards of $44 billion on the construction of 24-30 Pebble Bed Modular Reactors (PBMR) to supply electricity and process heat for domestic use. Of this amount ($44B), at least half ($22B) will have to be raised via global investment markets. Recently, credit rating service Moody's downgraded Eskom's ability to borrow because the South African government did not allow it to raise rates by as much as 60%. Instead, the government granted a rate increase of about half that amount, but left the door open to future incremental increases. Eskom may have to turn to the World Bank for financing of its new nuclear build.

Revenue potential of spent nuclear fuel

Sale of the fuel could help pay for the massive investment. If this turns out to be the official plan, it will make South Africa the first nation to recognize the revenue potential of exporting its spent nuclear fuel. The exports would also help South Africa keep more of its mined uranium for its own use and help pay for the massive new build of PBMRs. The revenue might also help raise its credit rating and gain more favorable terms for loans from the World Bank.

In the past two years South Africa has faced crippling shortages of electricity due to failure to raise rates and to invest in new generating capacity. The economy has suffered significantly especially in the key sectors of mining, smelting, and manufacturing all of which are big users of electricity.

LWRs on tap

In addition to the new PBMRs, South Africa also has plans to build as many as 12 new conventional light water reactors (LWRs). Since South Africa has no nuclear fuel manufacturing capability of its own, it is likely the contracts for the new plants would involve retrograde of the spent fuel either back to the country of origin or offered for sale as part of the newly announced export plan. The bidders on the 12 new LWR plants may have to take this new announcement by South Africa into account.

PBMR EPC contract awarded for $242 million

World Nuclear News reports that Canada's SNC Lavalin has announced that a joint venture with Murray & Reports has been awarded a $242 million contract for engineering, procurement, and construction services (EPC) for South Africa's PBMR project. A finished PBMR unit is expected to enter revenue service in 2014. It would produce 165MW and be built in networks or "packs"of eight at a time. An "eight pack" would generate 1,300 MWe or 15% more than a Westinghouse AP1000.

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