South Africa’s National Radioactive Waste Disposal Institute has signed a strategic Memorandum of Understanding with the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC). The partnership comes as the Institute moves to complete a R2 billion radioactive waste management facility by 2030, aligning with the country’s Integrated Resource Plan.
The IRP targets 5.2 gigawatts of new commercial nuclear power capacity by 2039.
Speaking at the SA-China Electricity and Energy Investment Conference, the Institute’s Riedewan Barkadien outlined the significance of the agreement.
“South Africa has made it clear in its IRP 2025. Now that we are moving towards 5.2 gigawatts of electricity from nuclear, and a key part of that is the questions that people ask around, ‘what happens to the radioactive waste?’ So, very important that, as we move that project forward, we also need to deal with the radioactive waste,” says Barkadien.
“So very exciting that you’ve had this opportunity now, to enter this Memorandum of Understanding with the China Nuclear Corporation (CNNC). They are a massive entity over 100 gigawatts of nuclear electricity. And so, really, a vast amount of experience in nuclear. They also have a nuclear waste division in their organisation, and we’ve signed this Memorandum of Understanding to work together with them, to share experience. We’ve run our own facility for over 40 years. So, we can share, but clearly, with the size of CNNC and the Chinese waste disposal organisation, we have the opportunity for lots of learning from them,” he adds.
