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Monday, April 6, 2009.

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Shannon O'Donnell.

Making headlines today:

On Friday, Cape Town-based Optimal Energy announced that it was gearing up for the start of mass production of its home-grown prototype Joule electric vehicle in South Africa in 2012.

Executive manager for marketing, Diana Blake, said that production volumes were estimated at an initial 50 000 units a year.

This would mean Optimal Energy would qualify for incentives under the new Automotive Production and Development Programme. The APDP is set to replace government's current automotive industry support scheme, the Motor Industry Development Programme, in 2012.

South Africans can reportedly look forward to seeing pilot fleets of the zero-emission Joule on the country's roads, and around the globe, from 2010 onwards.

On Saturday, South Africa's power utility Eskom said that the second unit at its Koeberg nuclear power station was running again after a shut down. It said it would reach full output within two days. Eskom spokesperson Fani Zulu said the plant was stable and production was increasing.

He said the unit was producing more than 50% of its output. Eskom said on April 2 that the unit had shut down automatically after a technical fault.

Koeberg's only other unit has been shut for scheduled maintenance since January. This means the facility's total power capacity of 1 800 MW was out of service.

Eskom said its other unit at Koeberg would undergo refuelling, maintenance and upgrading. This process was expected to be completed in May 2009.

Also making headlines:

South Africa and Lesotho will cooperate on up to 20 projects.
The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research says that South Africa's logistics costs are 'running away'.
JSE-listed Huge Group announces a possible private equity offer.
And, a continental investment body says that Africa 'must ease terms' for local businesses.

That's a round up of news making headlines today. For more on these and other stories please visit engineeringnews.co.za.

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