SA nuclear build will cost billions

South Africa plans to spend an estimated R400 billion on building up its nuclear electricity-generating capacity, Energy Minister Dipuo Peters said on Thursday.

Briefing the media at the 17th Conference of the Parties (Cop17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Durban, she said whatever the total figure, the spending had to benefit the country.

"Our cost estimate is R400 billion... but we believe whatever is spent must benefit South Africans."

Peters was responding to a question on whether reports were correct that government was planning to spend a trillion rand on its nuclear build, at four times the global rate.

Earlier, she told reporters that the 20-year integrated resource plan (IRP) for electricity envisaged an energy mix that included 23 percent coming from nuclear in the future.

"The IRP seeks to have an energy mix whereby 42 percent of all new capacity is from renewable sources, followed by 23 percent from nuclear, 15 percent from coal, nine percent from liquid fuels, six percent from natural gas and six percent from imported hydro [power]," she said.