South Africa had an indigenous design for a small modular nuclear reactor (SMR), a simplified derivative of the country’s State-funded Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) project, highlighted nuclear physicist and Stratek Global chairperson Dr Kelvin Kemm in his address to the Energy Indaba conference in Cape Town on Monday. (The PBMR project was effectively terminated in 2009.) This derivative, which was being developed with private funding, was designated the HTMR-100. This was a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (like the PBMR), making it a Generation IV reactor design. It also meant that it did not need water for cooling, allowing it to be deployed in arid areas, away from coastlines. This made the design very suitable for South Africa and much of the rest of the African continent and in fact it had been specifically designed to meet African conditions, including with regard to issues such as maintenance.
