At the September technology evening, Dr Kelvin Kemm, recipient of the Lifetime Achievers Award by the South African National Science and Technology Forum, talked about ‘Nuclear power as a future main energy source’. Dr Kemm, a nuclear physicist, environmentalist, iconoclast de luxe, business strategy consultant and founder of a lobby group called Green and Gold Forum, believes that a healthy economy needs wide appreciation for the role of technology.
He sees a bright future for nuclear power, especially in Africa where coal is a dirty depleting resource and solar and wind technologies, although having their place, are erratic and cannot generate sufficient sustainable electricity to provide cost effective solutions. The crisis is compounded by the fact that there are essentially no more hydro sites that could deliver significant amounts of power.
Dr Kemm spoke about South Africa’s nuclear programme, the situation in Japan and the future of nuclear energy. He promotes the use of the pebble bed modular reactor in African electrical development, from the viewpoint that nuclear energy is essential to provide cost effective, sustainable power in Africa.
Known for his contrarian take on things, he stirs conventional thinking including the hype and politicising of global warming. He criticised the 10 green myths of global warming with the premise, “See the science and get the myth out your head”.
We thank Dr Kemm for his insightful talk, which was well received.
SAIMC site visit to Unilever’s Boksburg factory
On Friday 23 September the Jhb branch of the SAIMC organised a factory visit to the Unilever Factory in Boksburg. The visit was well attended, and despite being on a Friday afternoon, there were at least six people on the waiting list to attend. The tour started with a safety induction and an interesting presentation showing the history of the plant and the Unilever group.
We then moved to the control room for an overview of the DCS system, then onto the factory floor where we followed the manufacturing process. We were shown the different control philosophies being utilised, from centralised DCS to PLC/scada control using Fieldbus into the plant. We were also able to discuss aspects of the instrumentation in use around the factory. Our appreciation to Jon and Chris from Unilever who took us around the factory, answered our questions and explained how and why certain measuring and control principles are used in the factory.
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