SA wants to enrich own uranium

SA wants to enrich own uranium

SOUTH Africa is holding off joining a US-led initiative to spread atomic power since it does not want to give up its right to enrich uranium.

Minerals and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica told reporters, at a meeting of the UN atomic agency, about Global Nuclear Energy Partnership’s (GNEP) invitation accompanied by a declaration.

But “we got a bit concerned that there was some conflict of ... our national policy”.

South Africa was not among the 11 countries which joined the US-led GNEP in Vienna on Sunday – an effort to spread atomic power but not technology which can be used to make nuclear weapons. Uranium enrichment makes nuclear power reactor fuel but also atom bomb material.

New members Australia, Bulgaria, Ghana, Hungary, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Ukraine joined the United States, China, France, Japan and Russia in signing a statement of principles for GNEP.

Sonjica said that under the GNEP “fuel would be distributed” to countries but South Africa “has taken a decision to beneficiate its minerals ... in other words to end-value the minerals in South Africa, and that would include uranium”.

Exporting uranium only to get it back refined, instead of enriching it in SA, would be “in conflict with our national policy”, she said.

Sonjica added that SA, which abandoned its nuclear weapons programme in the 1990s, including uranium enrichment, is now set to expand its civilian atomic power programme in order “to reduce the amount of CO2 our power plants emit”.

It is looking for international partners to develop uranium enrichment.

Nuclear power is seen by many as crucial in a world where energy demand is booming since it makes electricity without adding to the greenhouse gases which cause global warming. — Sapa-AFP

Source: http://www.dispatch.co.za/2007/09/19/SouthAfrica/anuke.html