{"id":369678,"date":"2020-01-31T06:55:53","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T04:55:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=369678"},"modified":"2020-01-31T06:55:53","modified_gmt":"2020-01-31T04:55:53","slug":"eskom-to-look-at-building-pebble-bed-nuclear-plants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/369678\/eskom-to-look-at-building-pebble-bed-nuclear-plants\/","title":{"rendered":"Eskom to look at building pebble-bed nuclear plants"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Eskom, South Africa\u2019s indebted state power utility, is <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/tenderbulletin.eskom.co.za\/Tenders\/Docs?TENDERID=43443\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">gauging interest<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0from companies to develop and build small modular reactors using so-called pebble-bed technology and supplying the fuel they would need.<\/p>\n<p>It will hold a meeting on the program on 12 February and submissions must be made by the end of next month, the Johannesburg-based company said in a tender announcement Thursday. Eskom could also seek to sell all or part of the business.<\/p>\n<p>The announcement appears to revive a project mooted by Eskom in 1999, when it forecast development of the technology could generate billions of rand a year from licensing to other utilities.<\/p>\n<p>In 2004, the utility held discussions with Areva SA and later Westinghouse Electric took a stake in the Eskom unit <span id=\"09304894-4379-11ea-8427-000f535001b0\">tasked<\/span>\u00a0with developing it. The project was closed in 2010 and employees associated with it lost their jobs.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;PBMR remains capable of restarting within a relatively short period of time, or, alternatively its technology&#8221; could be taken over by another company, Eskom said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Companies interested in investing in PBMR reactor technology or fuel technology, securing an equity stake in PBMR, buying PBMR technology or products or embarking on other potential relationships or transactions&#8221; should submit proposals.<\/p>\n<p>The technology was initially developed in Germany and was further advanced in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>South Africa spent $980 million\u00a0trying\u00a0to develop the technology before abandoning the project, according to the World Information Service on Energy, or WISE.<\/p>\n<p>At the time of the unit\u2019s\u00a0<span id=\"09304a1a-4379-11ea-8427-000f535001b0\">closure<\/span>, building a prototype plant would have cost $1.8 billion, it said.<\/p>\n<p>China is currently trying to develop its own plant based on the technology, according to WISE.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/368792\/south-african-mining-companies-want-to-start-generating-their-own-power\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">South African mining companies want to start generating their own power<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eskom, South Africa\u2019s indebted state power utility, is gauging interest\u00a0from companies to develop and build small modular reactors using so-called pebble-bed technology and supplying the fuel they would need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":97781,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-369678","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\/369678","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369678"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":369682,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369678\/revisions\/369682"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}