South Africa, sitting at the southern tip of Africa, is very interesting from a geological perspective. It has an amazing abundance of valuable minerals and is a world leader in mining. Its reserves of manganese, platinum, gold, diamonds, chromium and vanadium are some of the largest in the entire world. There are also commercial deposits of coal, aluminum, and iron ore. And, relevant to this blog, they also have uranium mines. As well as the mining industry, secondary mineral processing industries are a large part of their economy.
South Africa began work on the development of nuclear weapons in 1969. This nuclear program and their practice of apartheid made South Africa an outcast among developed nations in the West, many of whom would not trade with S.A. Being surrounded by hostile neighbors, S.A. created an entire nuclear infrastructure with fuel processing and weapons development including missiles as well as warheads. They were aided in their nuclear development by Israel.
In 1975, S.A. drilled two test shafts in the Kalahari Desert to conduct underground nuclear tests. When the Soviet Union discovered the test preparations, they notified the U.S. Combined diplomatic pressure from the Soviets, the U.S. and France convinced S.A. to cancel the tests.
Over the next decade, international fears of nuclear proliferation in Africa increase pressure on S.A. to abandon its nuclear weapons program. In 1987, the president of S.A. said that S.A. might sign the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if other states in Southern Africa would sign it. Intense diplomatic effort resulted in Tanzania and Zambia signing the NPT. S.A. signed the treaty in 1991.
Following the signing of the NPT, in 1991, S.A. also signed a Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency. These safeguard agreements were used to insure that the signatories were complying with the terms of the NPT and included giving the IAEA access to information and facilities in order to verify compliance. S.A. had dismantled all of its nuclear weapons and weapons production facilities before signing the NPT and the IAEA agreed that its inspections found no indication that S.A. had not ended its nuclear weapons program. South Africa is one of the few countries that has destroyed its nuclear weapons capacity.
The S.A. Atomic Energy Corporation redirected resources away from nuclear deterrence and into economic development of peaceful used for nuclear technology. In 1993, S.A. became a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. The NSG was created in 1975 to help control the international trade in nuclear technology and nuclear materials. In 1996, S.A. signed the Treaty of Pelindaba along with many other African nations to create nuclear free Africa. S.A. also became a signatory for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty in 1999.
The S.A. energy department is currently pushing a huge project to build a whole new fleet of nuclear reactors to supply energy to S.A. They claim that the window is closing and that a decision has to be made immediately to move forward in order to have needed reactors in place by 2023. The new national planning commission has just issued a report challenging the position of the energy department. The report says that an immediate decision is not critical. The report also says that building new nuclear reactors to supply electric power to S.A. might actually raise the cost of electricity over other alternative sources of power. Even if power demands are higher than projected and costs of nuclear construction are lower than projected, new reactors would not be needed until 2029 at the earliest. Other energy sources can easily allow S.A. to reduce carbon emissions at a lower cost and in a shorter time frame. Building a lot of new reactors may result in an enormous waste of money and excess generating capacity.
South Africa made a very wise decision to abandon nuclear weapons. Let us hope that they make an equally wise decision to abandon nuclear power.
Logo of the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation:
