S.Africa to spend $94 mln on nuclear energy development

South Africa will spend 580 million rand in fiscal 2006/07 on the development of a pebble bed modular reactor (PBMR) as it searches for new energy sources, the Treasury said on Wednesday.

The country plans to build a PBMR near its only existing nuclear power facility Koeberg, north of Cape Town, as it scrambles to find alternative sources to meet growing electricity, with demand expected to exceed supply by 2007.