A number of global and local experts will be converging on the Nt'Shonalonga Valley Resort at Centurion near Pretoria from Wednesday to Friday next week for the Nuclear Africa 2017 Conference and Exhibition.
Keynote Speaker, Dr Kelvin Kemm, said the conference will present the other side of the nuclear story - namely the massive job and economic growth opportunities the nuclear build programme holds for South African companies and SMME's.
According to Dr Kemm, the conference will give the public an opportunity to "get the other side of the nuclear story.”
Representatives from all the big foreign bidders for the country's nuclear build programme will be at the conference, including China, France, Russia, Korea, US, Germany. Local representation will come from Eskom, the Nuclear Regulator, Necsa and the Department of Energy.
Dr Kemm, who is the CEO of Nuclear Africa, said he'd like to see many Eastern Cape companies becoming involved in the nuclear plant site at Thyspunt at Cape St Francis.
"The site development around the Thyspunt site will be tens of billions of rands. As soon as the Environment Minister authorises the go-ahead, which we expect any day now, we could start building the access roads, laying the water pipes, doing the sewerage and the electrical work which is required for the construction which will take place over about half a dozen years. So, it's very imminent,” Dr Kemm said.
He said he would also like to see a lot of people in the Kouga area and the general PE area becoming involved in the project because he said "we want to ensure that economic activity comes into that area."
"At this nuclear conference we largely not talking nuclear stuff. We're talking about how we get the project going, who is going to bulldozing the roads and who will be dealing with whom to get what done," he said.
