Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (Pty) Ltd (PBMR)
www.pbmr.co.za

REDEFINING THE NUCLEAR FUTURE

From a small research and development company with barely 100 employees at its inception in 1999, South Africa’s Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (Pty) Ltd has grown into one of the largest nuclear reactor design teams in the world.  In addition to the core team of some 700 people at the PBMR head-office in Centurion near Pretoria, more than a 1000 people at universities, private companies and research institutes are involved with the project.

The Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) team is currently preparing for the building of a commercial scale power reactor project at Koeberg near Cape Town, where Africa’s only nuclear power station is based, and a fuel plant at Pelindaba near Pretoria.  The current schedule is to start construction in 2010 and for the reactor to be commissioned in 2014. Construction of the fist commercial PBMR modules are planned to start three years after commissioning of the demonstration reactor.

An artist impression of a PBMR power plant.
An artist impression of a PBMR power plant.

The PBMR is a High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor with a closed-cycle, gas turbine power conversion system. Although it is not the only gas-cooled high-temperature reactor currently being developed in the world, the South African project is internationally regarded as the leader in the power generation field.  Very high efficiency and attractive economics are possible without compromising the high levels of passive safety expected of advanced nuclear designs.

Developing out of a desire for energy sustainability, the PBMR technology defines 21st century energy thinking. Its ability to economically generate electricity and create high value co-products such as hydrogen, desalinated water and industrial or residential process heat, not only sets it apart from all previous nuclear reactors,  but also from the next generation of energy sources.

PBMR (Pty) Ltd’s current investors, the South African utility Eskom, the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa and the US nuclear company Westinghouse, share the vision of small, standardised, inherently safe, modular reactors as one of the best carbon-free alternatives for new power generation capacity around the world.

The project is also emphatically supported by the South African Government, who allocated significant funding to the project and stated an intent to eventually produce 4000MW to 5000MW of power from pebble bed reactors in South Africa.

Exploring green options

The PBMR is a sustainable energy source with an inherent capacity for safety to surrounding communities.   It has a simple design basis, with passive safety features that require no human intervention and that cannot be by-passed or rendered ineffective in any way.  If a fault occurs during reactor operations, the system, at worst, will come to a standstill and merely dissipate heat on a decreasing curve without any core failure or release of radioactivity to the environment.

The project stemmed from the country’s commitment to diversify its energy generation sources.  It is common knowledge that South Africa is much too dependent on coal.  In fact, more than 90 percent of the country’s electricity is coal-fired generated.

Since demand for electricity has caught up with the available capacity, South Africa urgently has to add electricity generation capacity.  In addition, it is South Africa’s intention to reduce its dependence on coal to 70% of supply.

To this end, South Africa has done a lot of research into exploring the various “green” options available, including solar, wind, hydro, gas and nuclear.  The PBMR concept, which has a short construction lead-time, low operating cost and fast load-following characteristics, was identified as one of the most promising options.

The PBMR is therefore poised to be the world’s first commercial scale advanced reactor built in the new millennium.

SALIENT FEATURES
Enquiries:

Tom Ferreira, Communications Manager
Email: Tom.Ferreira@pbmr.co.za
Tel:  27-12-6411000
Web: www.pbmr.co.za