A licensing plan for coupling nuclear–renewable hybrid energy systems
International Journal of Development Research
A licensing plan for coupling nuclear–renewable hybrid energy systems
Received 20th April, 2023; Received in revised form 13th May, 2023; Accepted 19th June, 2023; Published online 28th July, 2023
Copyright©2023, Randall Ruben Lavelot and Tamsin Leoni Lavelot. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
South Africa committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 34% below "Business As Usual" levels by 2020 and 42% by 2025 at the Copenhagen climate change conference. However, global energy demand was projected to rise due to population and industrial growth, with energy usage expected to increase by 13% through 2040. In South Africa, a steady increase in electricity demand prompted the government to implement a new growth path (NGP), which prioritized job creation in all economic policies, including energy. To address the growing energy demand, an alternative energy source for combined heat and power was necessary, particularly for synthetic fuel production. The coupling of a high temperature reactor (HTR) with a chemical process plant could improve carbon and thermal efficiency, as seen in international organizations like the ARCHER (Advanced High-Temperature Reactors for Cogeneration of Heat and Electricity R&D) project. HTRs are still in their conceptual stages andaresuitable candidate forcouplingto an energy-intensiveindustrythat require process heat with sufficiently hightemperatures,with potential uses for NRHES (Nuclear-Renewable Hybrid Energy Systems). The South African team aimed to model the SASOL process, assess its financial viability, and develop a licensing plan.