WeeklySA_AdminTechnology: As global demand grows for the specialised fuel needed by advanced nuclear reactors, South Africa should turn its neglected Pebble Bed Modular Reactor expertise into a new industrial opportunity…
By Bismark Tyobeka
The global nuclear industry is entering a new era. Small modular reactors (SMRs), microreactors and other advanced technologies are moving from laboratories and design offices towards demonstration and commercial deployment.
Yet, behind the excitement surrounding these reactors lies a less glamorous but increasingly decisive question: where will their fuel come from?
At the centre of that question is high-assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU.
HALEU is uranium enriched to more than 5% but less than 20% uranium-235. Conventional light-water reactors generally use uranium enriched to below 5%. Many emerging advanced reactors require higher enrichment because it allows for smaller cores, longer operating cycles, better fuel utilisation and greater design flexibility.
The question should not simply be which SMR South Africa should buy, but which parts of the global SMR value chain South Africa can own…
HALEU is therefore becoming a strategic commodity in the new global nuclear economy. For South Africa, there is an intriguing dimension: we have been here before.
During the development of the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR), South Africa acquired sophisticated capabilities in coated-particle nuclear fuel. The PBMR design used TRISO-coated uranium dioxide particles embedded in graphite fuel spheres. Its reference fuel enrichment was about 9.6% uranium-235—squarely within today’s HALEU range.
South Africa was therefore developing experimental fuel in a class now regarded as strategically important. At Pelindaba, the country built expertise in fuel kernels, coating technologies, graphite fuel manufacture, quality assurance and related fuel-cycle activities.
When the PBMR programme was discontinued, much of that momentum was lost. The world, however, did not stand still. Ironically, it has moved towards some of the technologies South Africa was pursuing.
Several advanced reactor developers now require HALEU, but commercial supply remains constrained. The United States has established a dedicated HALEU Availability Program and committed substantial public resources to enrichment, deconversion, transport and fuel fabrication. The lesson is clear: leadership in advanced nuclear technology cannot be separated from control of, or reliable access to, the fuel cycle.
An excellent reactor design without an assured source of qualified fuel remains little more than a sophisticated drawing. This supply constraint creates an opening for South Africa—but re-entering the HALEU economy should not mean attempting to rebuild the PBMR programme exactly as it existed two decades ago.
Nor should the country immediately try to recreate every part of the nuclear fuel cycle. Instead, it should identify where its historical capabilities intersect with emerging global demand.
The fuel chain includes uranium mining, conversion, enrichment, deconversion and fuel fabrication. South Africa has no commercial enrichment capability. Re-establishing one would demand enormous capital investment, technological development, regulatory oversight, safeguards and a convincing long-term market.
That need not be the starting point. South Africa could initially procure suitably enriched HALEU feed material from international suppliers while rebuilding downstream expertise, particularly in advanced fuel manufacture and TRISO fuel. It is here that the country’s historical experience becomes especially valuable.
The government should set a focused national objective: manufacture and qualify an advanced, nuclear-grade TRISO fuel particle at Pelindaba once again.
This achievable goal is ambitious enough to begin restoring an industrial capability. The first step should be a comprehensive PBMR Fuel Capability Recovery Study. Necsa, working with universities, government, the regulator and industry, should determine what remains: equipment, laboratories, intellectual property, manufacturing records, qualification data, technical documents and experienced people.
The human dimension is urgent. Many scientists, engineers and technicians who worked on PBMR fuel are approaching or have reached retirement. Their practical knowledge cannot be reconstructed from drawings and reports alone. South Africa must identify these specialists and systematically preserve their expertise while there is still time.
The longer-term ambition should extend beyond the PBMR. South Africa should establish a Pelindaba Advanced Nuclear Fuel Centre for research, testing and the eventual commercial manufacture of advanced-reactor fuels.
It should not exist merely to supply one future South African reactor. The larger question is whether South Africa can become a trusted international centre for manufacturing and qualifying fuel for the global SMR industry. That would transform the economic proposition: the country would participate not only as a purchaser of reactors but as a contributor to their international supply chain.
Universities could support reactor physics, materials science, fuel-performance modelling, thermal hydraulics and postgraduate training. Necsa could contribute infrastructure and fuel-cycle expertise, while international reactor vendors and fuel companies could bring technology partnerships and access to markets.
The regulator would need to develop the expertise required to oversee advanced-fuel manufacture, handling and transport.
South Africa should eventually hold a serious national discussion about enrichment, but it must be guided by economics, energy security, industrial policy and international safeguards—not nostalgia or prestige. If African and global SMR deployment creates sufficient HALEU demand, the economics of an appropriately sized local enrichment capability may look very different in 10 or 15 years.
The approach should be sequential: recover knowledge, establish research and pilot manufacturing, qualify the fuel, and develop commercial capacity. Domestic enrichment should be considered only when demand and the strategic case justify it.
The broader issue is that Africa cannot continue entering every major technological transition solely as a consumer. If advanced reactors become an important part of the clean-energy system, African countries may eventually spend billions on reactors, components, engineering services and fuel.
South Africa already possesses one of the continent’s most mature nuclear ecosystems. It has operated power and research reactors, managed fuel-cycle facilities, supplied radioisotopes to global markets, trained nuclear engineers and physicists, and accumulated decades of regulatory and technical knowledge.
The question should therefore not simply be which SMR South Africa should buy. It should be which parts of the global SMR value chain South Africa can own. Advanced nuclear fuel should be one answer.
The PBMR experience should not be remembered only as an expensive chapter in the country’s nuclear history. Embedded in it are people, technologies and intellectual property that may be more strategically valuable today than when they were developed.
South Africa cannot recover the time it lost, but it need not discard the knowledge that remains. The first milestone need not be a new reactor. It could be something far smaller: a TRISO particle manufactured at Pelindaba once again. Inside that tiny particle may lie the beginning of South Africa’s return to the frontiers of advanced nuclear technology.
Professor Bismark Tyobeka is principal and vice-chancellor of the North-West University
Comment
BREAK THE METH EMPIRE
South African police deserve praise for uncovering three suspected crystal-methamphetamine laboratories on remote farms in less than four months.
The raids near Swartruggens, Musina and Klipvoorstad have disrupted potentially ruinous criminal enterprises. They have also exposed an unsettling possibility: South Africa is increasingly being used as a manufacturing and distribution base by well-funded international drug networks.
At least six Mexican nationals were arrested in the Swartruggens and Musina operations. Their nationality alone does not prove cartel membership, and police have not established publicly that the three laboratories belong to one network. Nevertheless, the similarities cannot be ignored.
Remote farms provide privacy, storage space and access to transport routes. Sophisticated equipment and precursor chemicals do not materialise by accident. Someone finances the laboratories, arranges the properties, moves chemicals through borders or ports and distributes the finished drugs.
Police must therefore follow the money and supply chains. Allegations that criminal syndicates corrupt law-enforcement officers, border officials or port personnel must be investigated and proved—not repeated as established fact. If insiders are assisting traffickers, they are not merely corrupt officials; they are accomplices in the destruction of communities.
The public-health emergency is already visible. The latest national treatment data cited by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime recorded 8,959 admissions across 79 South African treatment facilities during the first half of 2024, with methamphetamine use increasing in several areas.
Across Africa, an estimated 74 million people used drugs in 2024, representing 8.6% of the continent’s population. UNODC South Africa treatment update, UNODC World Drug Report 2026
The Fogarty International Center warned as far back as 2011 that methamphetamine use among Western Cape youths was damaging adolescent brains and increasing risky sexual behaviour associated with HIV transmission. Fogarty International Center
Drug trafficking may also intersect with human trafficking, sexual exploitation and other organised crimes. Children and vulnerable young people face particular danger, whether as consumers, couriers or victims of exploitation.
Raids are therefore only the beginning. South Africa needs intelligence-led policing, cleaner borders and ports, financial investigations, properly resourced rehabilitation centres and prevention programmes reaching schools and families.
Police have struck at the factories. The state must now dismantle the networks—and rescue the generation those networks are poisoning.
