The importance of South Africa having successful nuclear energy and radioisotope production programs Kelvin Kemm, CEO of Nuclear Africa March 5, 2019
Africa in general is currently a good subject for study for nuclear. The continent is very much misunderstood by the first world and particularly by the US. There is a large body of opinion that thinks that Africa is very primitive. Yes certainly there are parts which are primitive, but that image tends to be rubbed in by the likes of CNN TV who have an Africa Today news and information clip on a regular basis. They love to show the preconceived idea of African drums and dancing around the fire and such like. They do not show the highly robotic Ford motor production plant in Pretoria, for example. Ford motor cars are exported all over the world from Pretoria. Same for BMW, Mercedes, Toyota, VW and others, which are all made in Port Elizabeth. A number of African countries are moving in the direction small modular reactors because they can be placed in areas not next to large bodies of water (which Africa does not have much of) and can also be placed close to industrial centres or cities where the demand is. They are realising that nuclear is an option. Africa is very large with huge distances between cities and industrial areas so it is completely inappropriate often to look to German, French, British etc solutions for Africa just on distances alone, let alone climatic conditions and all of the other factors. Africans have often been led to believe that the first world has all the answers. They don’t, African countries must come to their own conclusions. They are concluding that nuclear is a solution. In parallel there is an onslaught from first world greens who keep telling Africans that they don’t understand and that wind is the answer (often with overtones of ‘you are only a third world country and not up to nuclear which needs real brains’). This is offensive here but African culture tends to be that you politely smile at someone and try not to argue so they don’t tell the German greens to ‘jump off the closest cliff’. 1