Nuclear energy was not very well accepted in Africa, because people had a lot of unfounded views associating nuclear with dangerous and the atomic bomb, also they had that misconception of African are not mature enough for a nuclear program and it’s expensive. However nowadays, according to African nuclear leaders, there is a positive change because Africans come to realize that there is a need to introduce nuclear power to the energy mix of Africa. If we take the African continent as a whole there is a clear lack of energy, countries are relying essentially on hydro, fossil fuel and gas. The later are not renewable and emit CO2. Nuclear is one of the few power generations that can give reliable energy 24/7 year-round and doesn’t emit CO2.
In Nigeria, they have done their site selection, human resource development, industrialization, and they are moving toward public enlightenment program, to educate and inform the general public, as public acceptance is paramount to the establishment of nuclear power projects.
The decision to support nuclear or any other energy stands from the fact that a country needs it to industrialize and develop, the only source that could support that industrialization maybe coal, hydro, nuclear or natural gas as no country is able to develop on the backbone of heavy oil or diesel. The problem of African countries is relying heavily on heavy oil, light crude, and hydropower, therefore Africa is energy deficient.
Africa has a lot of natural resources, Ghana, for instance, has bauxite, iron ore, gold but it needs to add value to it instead of selling it as raw. You can't rely on oil or gas, in order to help the country come out of poverty. Ghana developed its hydropower system which gives it cheap power to support its aluminum industry, but moving back the line, its demand is growing and the actual power supply cannot provide enough for industrialization. Ghanaian were pushed to the wall to make a decision to look for an alternative energy option that can help them develop. The only country in Africa that has a nuclear power plant is South Africa, that’s why it is the most industrialized country of the continent, as a result of cheap power to supporting them. If Ghana wants to add value to its bauxite, gold, cocoa they need cheap reliable power. This is the reason Ghana took the decision to consider nuclear.
In Ghana, there is bipartisan support to nuclear from both sides of the political spectrum, regardless of the successive changes of government, the path remained the same for nuclear. Ghana has already set up there nuclear plant organization which will coordinate all the activities, and from that it allows them to establish the nuclear regulatory authority, they also established a nuclear power institute where young graduates are educated in the field of nuclear (PhD, MSc degrees). Ghana has an alliance with countries experienced in nuclear, in order for some of those young graduates to go and build up their capacity. Furthermore, they established an owner-operator, they’ve gone through the first phase of IAEA. Finally, they have identified at the moment, 4 candidate sites for the first nuclear power plant and they hope that once they get the final approval from the government to proceed, the will move to identify the partner countries.
In conclusion, the decision of Ghana (which can be applied to all the African countries) to go nuclear has one main goal, to be able to provide cheap power to stimulate economic activities and create jobs. Ghana doesn’t have to reinvent the nuclear schemes, they have examples to look at. A typical example would be Germany which doesn’t have enough mineral resources; however, thanks to the fact that they could generate cheap energy from nuclear and coal, they were able to import raw materials, process them and add value to them which then create economic activities. So, if Africa could provide cheap power, then companies would be incentivized to invest and set up factories within the continent, and that is exactly what Ghana is aiming to do.