Across a series of interviews recorded at the ESI Africa Studio and on the sidelines of World Atomic Week, executives, regulators and academics described a continent edging towards nuclear power for security of supply.
Strip away the megawatt targets and a different nuclear story emerges. The hard work is not laying the concrete or installing the turbines. It is waste disposal, skills pipelines and, above all, public trust.
Kenya is close to signing its first nuclear deal, with a 1,000MW plant planned for the shores of Lake Victoria. Yet Prof Lawrence Gumbe, Chairman of Kenya’s Nuclear Power and Energy Agency (NuPEA), is candid about how long the groundwork takes. The country’s nuclear programme dates back 61 years, and it still has no operational reactor.
For answers, Kenya leans on South Africa. “We address that by turning to our ‘older brother; ” said Francis Agar, a NuPEA board member, describing how Kenya benchmarks its safety case against Koeberg’s four-decade operating record. “We don’t come up with new answers to questions that have already been answered elsewhere.”
South Africa is happy to accept the role. Zizamele Mbambo, Deputy Director-General of Nuclear Energy at the Department of Electricity and Energy, called his country “an anchor and the leader of nuclear energy in the continent,” pointing to Koeberg’s life extension to 2044/45 and a further 2.5GW of new nuclear earmarked in the Integrated Resource Plan 2025.
Waste is the real test in nuclear power
Nowhere is institutional maturity more visible than in radioactive waste management, a subject Riedewaan Bakardien, Chief Executive Officer of South Africa’s National Radioactive Waste Disposal Institute (NRWDI), calls “among the least publicly understood parts of the nuclear value chain.”
Bakardien pushed back hard on the idea that waste … [please fill in the form to continue reading.]
