South Africa’s R16-billion investment in next-generation pebble bed modular reactor technology does not seem to have born fruit.

Eskom announced its second nuclear power station is to be a “third- generation” pressurised water reactor design supplied by either France’s Areva or the US’s Westinghouse.

Eskom has invited Areva to pitch a design called EPR (an acronym which originally stood for European Pressurised Reactor but subsequently changed to Evolutionary Power Reactor) against Westinghouse’s AP1000 design.

These are the two designs which have been battling it out in China for the past two years.

Westinghouse won an $8-billion (R54-billion) contract to build four AP1000 based nuclear power stations in China in 2006. Areva lost the first order for Chinese nuclear plants because it declined to transfer expertise and knowledge.

But Areva then won the Chinese contract last year, worth about $5-billion, $7.5- billion to build two ERP-based plants located in Guangdong, in spite of sticking to its previous conditions.

Thanks to intervention by French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who signed a $12-billion deal, Areva secured contracts for a third and fourth EPR units.

Construction of a pilot ERP is under way at Finland’s Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant. It was scheduled to go online next year and was budgeted to cost $3.7 billion $5.5-billion.

But after the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority found safety-related design and manufacturing deficiencies last June, construction delays of at least two years and a cost over-run of up to $1.5 billion $2.23-billion were reported.

Despite these problems, Areva has secured contracts to use the technology as the second unit in France’s Flamanville Nuclear Power Plant. Areva has also won contracts for ERP units in Abu Dhabi, the UK and the US besides China.

Eskom said on its website that environmental impact assessments are under way at five potential sites: Brazil (near Kleinsee in the Northern Cape); Schulpfontein on the Northern Cape west coast; Duynefontain (Koeberg); Bantamsklip (near Pearly Beach, east of Gansbaai) on the Western Cape coast; Thyspunt (near Oyster Bay, west of Cape St Francis) on the Eastern Cape coast.

The state-owned power utility said it plans to raise nuclear generation from the current 5percent that Koeberg generates to a quarter of its total capacity in its drive to double its current 40 Gigawatt generation capacity.