Dineo Faku
A rare earths and thorium mine, which was still under construction near Vredendal in the Western Cape, was expected to start production in the first half of next year, Trevor Blench, the chairman of Steenkampskraal Thorium, said yesterday.
Blench was speaking at the Nuclear Power Future for Africa conference in Sandton.
The R800 million high-grade mine will create 150 jobs and another 150 jobs will be created by the three beneficiation factories to be constructed in the Western Cape.
Rare earths are used in the production of X-ray machines and other medical devices. Thorium is naturally radioactive and is extracted from rare earths through beneficiation.
An estimated 5 000 tons of rare earths and 600 tons of thorium will be produced a year at the mine.
The mine contained an estimated 4 000 tons of thorium, which could provide the country with 100 years worth of electricity, Blench said.
Anglo American extracted thorium from the mine until the 1950s. The rare earth to be mined there would be sold to Europe, China and Japan.
Blench said a market for thorium had not yet been found and that the element would be stored at the mine. Construction began in June last year after the company was awarded mining rights in June 2010.
Blench said the company would also construct a TH-100 plant within the next five to 10 years. This is a thorium fuelled, gas cooled, pebble bed reactor. This thorium-based plant was a nuclear reactor that was safe, clean and efficient.
A pre-feasibility study was completed last year and aimed at exploring the concept design and user-required specifications, which would indicate how much power was needed.
Last year a major earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, resulting in a nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.
Environmentalists recalled this example after the government committed to adding capacity to its nuclear energy generation capabilities to give South Africa’s electricity grid a much-needed boost.
Thorium could replace uranium as a source of nuclear energy because uranium reserves globally were expected to run out in the next 30 years. Unlike uranium, thorium cannot be used for the production of weapons and it was cheaper to produce. “We would like to talk to government about the beneficiation of thorium,” he said.
The company plans to merge with its partners in Norway and list. “We are investigating possibly listing on the Johannesburg, London or Toronto stock exchanges.”