The power barges that can light up our world

24 March 2015 - 10:13 By SHAUN SMILLIE

A solution to South Africa's energy crisis might come sailing in on the high seas, with enough power to light up a town. At least six South African companies have, according to a US power barge manufacturer, shown interest in the floating power barges. And they are easy to set up. Simply tow them into a harbour, plug them up to the grid and fire them up.Dave Nickerson of Power Barge Corporation said there was high global demand for power barges.At present, there we re two power barges that could be made available were South Africa to opt for this energy source, he said.Both, in theory, could generate 250MW of electricity, although this , said Nickerson, could be affected by the environment .The barge comes complete with a generator, powered by either diesel or gas turbines. In the past both Russia and the US had power barges that used a nuclear reactor to generate electricity.Nickerson won't reveal who the South African companies were that had approached Power Barge Corporation but said they were both large electricity-consuming firms and energy producers.Recently, the SA Chamber of Commerce and Industry called on the government to bring in closed cycle power barges to tackle the country's energy crisis.But not everyone supports the idea."They are great for emergency power supply, if you have had a natural disaster, but not for powering a country," said energy specialist Chris Yelland.However, another energy specialist, Ted Blom, disagreed. He saw them as a viable option and had investigated their feasibility.Eskom said it had been looking at a number of options."Our focus at the moment is on solar plants in Northern Cape, wave electricity generation and biogas, said Khulu Phasiwe, Eskom's spokesman.Blom believes that another type of power ship could be used to sort out South Africa's power crisis. This, however, would be controversial. "Why don't we ask the Russians to hook up their nuclear submarines to our grid? Each of these can provide 500MW of power and it is cheap," said Blom.Nuclear power generation at Koeberg, said Blom, costs R1.05 per KWh to produce...

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