South African industry unites in Niasa

The founding meeting of the NuclearIndustry Association of South Africa (Niasa) was held on 6 December.The industry body's purpose is to "support, promote and champion thecollective interests of its members" which would primarily becorporations joined by 'associate members', 'sponsor members', academicinstitutions and some individual professionals. In return for theirfees, sponsor members obtain a seat on the Niasa board. Current sponsormembers come from nuclear companies, Necsa, Eskom, PBMR Pty,Westinghouse, Areva, Uranium One and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Withelected board members coming from DCD-Dorbyl, Satsi, ITherma Labs,Stratek, M-Tech Industrial, North-West Universtity and University ofPretoria. Rob Adam of Necsa is Niasa's President, while Sias Booysen ofDCD-Dorbyl is Vice President. The body has been amalgamated with theSouth African Nuclear Manufacturing Association (Sanma), another newbody which had been chaired by Booysen. Niasa will operate a number ofsub-committees, the first of which concerns manufacturing and is to bechaired by Booysen. State-owned Eskom announced plans to build up to 18GWe of nuclear power, and another state enterprise, PBMR Pty isdeveloping a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor. Adam said " the country has an opportunity to fully engage in the total spectrum of the nuclear industry and its fuel cycle."