South Africa is working to develop miniature nuclear reactors to expand its nuclear technology capacity, South African Minister of Minerals and Energy Affairs Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said yesterday at an International Atomic Energy Agency conference. 

Eskom, South Africa’s state-owned electric utility, is developing 110-megawatt pebble bed modular nuclear reactors in cooperation with British Nuclear Fuels and the U.S. company Exelon.  South Africa expects construction of the first reactor to begin next year.  Selling the reactors to other countries could earn South Africa over $1.9 billion a year; the United States, Britain, China, Indonesia, Morocco, Egypt and Tunisia are all interested in the reactors, according to today’s Financial Times.

Meanwhile, Victor Motha, a technician at a Nuclear Corporation of South Africa laboratory, died this week after inhaling a poisonous gas, according to the Times.

South Africa developed its nuclear capacity during its apartheid era and has since dismantled its nuclear weapons production program (James Lamont, Financial Times, Nov. 14).

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