{"id":221329,"date":"2018-01-26T07:25:59","date_gmt":"2018-01-26T05:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=221329"},"modified":"2018-01-26T07:25:59","modified_gmt":"2018-01-26T05:25:59","slug":"ramaphosa-says-south-africa-has-no-cash-for-nuclear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/221329\/ramaphosa-says-south-africa-has-no-cash-for-nuclear\/","title":{"rendered":"Ramaphosa says South Africa has no cash for nuclear"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"article-content\">\n<p>South African Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is next in line to lead the country, said the government currently can\u2019t afford to build new nuclear power reactors.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have to look at where the economy is &#8212; we have excess power and we have no money to go for a major nuclear plant building,\u201d Ramaphosa told reporters Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. \u201cWe have said the nuclear process will be looked at in the broad context of affordability.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ramaphosa\u2019s approach differs markedly from that of President Jacob Zuma, who he succeeded last month as head of the ruling African National Congress. Zuma has championed plans to build as many as eight reactors that would generate 9,600 megawatts of energy starting from 2023 and cost as much as R1 trillion ($84 billion) &#8211; a program critics say the country can\u2019t afford and doesn\u2019t need.<\/p>\n<p>While court challenges stalled the government\u2019s plans to seek bids to build new atomic plants last year, Zuma signaled that he wanted to revive the nuclear program when he reshuffled his cabinet in October and changed his energy minister.<\/p>\n<p>Ramaphosa, who is expected to succeed Zuma as president within the next few months, has said the government should focus on developing other forms of renewable energy.<\/p>\n<p>Rosatom Corp, Areva SA, EDF SA, Toshiba Corp\u2019s Westinghouse Electric unit, China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Corp and Korea Electric Power Corp. previously expressed interest in building new reactors in South Africa.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/211423\/eskom-not-slowing-down-its-nuclear-ambitions-report\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Eskom not slowing down its nuclear ambitions: report<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South African Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is next in line to lead the country, said the government currently can\u2019t afford to build new nuclear power reactors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":217095,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-221329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221329"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":221353,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221329\/revisions\/221353"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}