15 April 2008
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Johannesburg — GLOBAL warming, rapid economic growth in emerging economies such as India and China and delayed investment worldwide in new generating capacity, have resulted in a great number of new nuclear power stations being planned around the world.
Asian countries are leading the way and about 30 nuclear reactors are expected to be built in China by 2020, while Japan, India and Pakistan each have several more reactors on their drawing boards.
The rush to build nuclear plants has contributed to the substantially higher price of uranium over the past three years. So it is no surprise that construction companies are warning that Eskom's nuclear power plant programme may be delayed by equipment supply constraints.
Wikipedia notes, for example, that the production of nuclear power plants may be stalled because of a backlog at Japan Steel Works, the only factory in the world able to manufacture the central part of a reactor's containment vessel in a single piece. The company makes four a year. A shift to double capacity will not be enough to meet demand.
In Finland, the construction of a new technology reactor has been delayed for two years. The nuclear industry globally has a history of cost and time overruns. It is something that Eskom is going to have to manage very carefully indeed.
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