Kenya Nuclear Electricity Board][photo/softkenya.com]
The Kenya Nuclear Electricity Board (KNEB) has announced plans for a prototype “safer” nuclear power plant even as concerns over its delicacy and cost implications continue to linger. Officials said that they are currently selecting a suitable site for the reactor, which would be the first of its kind in the region, with plans to have the plant up and running by 2027, at the earliest.
KNEB’s chief executive, Collins Juma gave the nuke’s chance a huge vote of confidence with a tongue-in-cheek answer when quizzed on the location where the ambitious project would sit saying detailed site analysis and exact locality of the country’s first-ever nuclear power plant would be clear by end of 2019 or early 2020.
“Details of site analysis are not yet out at the moment. We have locations across the country where we think a nuclear power plant can do better, but location details and full site analysis will only be possible to tell after two years,” he said.
He was speaking during a joint consumers’ dialogue forum on nuclear electricity organized by Consumers Federation of Kenya (COFEK) in partnership with a nuclear board.
Upon completion, Kenya is expected to join the leagues of France, China, Germany as well as South Africa among other global currencies operating or developing nuclear power plants, albeit at a substantial worth. The four reactors would cost the exchequer in excess of Sh2 trillion once complete, with sources and financing modeling still unclear.
The nuclear power plants commonly built next to large water bodies due to huge amounts of water feeding would add an additional 4,000MW of energy to the national grid against the country’s potential to yield 10,000MW of geothermal power, according to Geothermal Development Company.