South Africa first built nuclear reactors in the 1980s with help from France. The power plants created ostensible justification for the building of enrichment plants, but the main output of the latter was highly enriched uranium dedicated to supplying a nuclear weapons programme. This was cancelled on the eve of the democratic transition, and no one has been held to account for developing weapons of mass destruction. The current government tried in vain to develop a pebble bed reactor but had to give up after costs proved excessive and because the project was going nowhere. In the wake of an electricity shortage, it has once again turned to nuclear to provide part of the energy mix. It intends by the end of 2012 to order around 8 new reactors at a value of ZAR300 billion (although commentators predict cost escalations to over three times that amount), the largest contract ever put to tender by the government. This project aims at securing 9.6 gigawatts of nuclear power. It is opposed by many EJOs, local, national and global, who argue that in the wake of Fukushima this is a risky path to energy security, cannot address climate change, will lead to greater national debt, and cannot resolve questions of high level waste, which will burden many future generations.

Once a large producer of uranium, South Africa now only contributes about 1 percent of global supply. Nuclear provides around 5 percent of just under 40 gigawatts of electricity (2012) but government plans to treble the nuclear contribution by 2030 (to 9.6 GW of nuclear-generated electricity). To do so, it needs to start a new tendering process to order nuclear reactors by the end of 2012. It has earmarked new sites around the coast for the location of the new nuclear power stations (at Thyspunt and Bantamsklip).