Category Archives: Nuclear Energy for Africa

Germany’s shut down of nuclear plants a ‘huge mistake’, says Merz

British Financial Empire, Nuclear Energy for Africa

re posted from                         BRUSSELS SIGNAL

Germany’s shut down of nuclear plants a ‘huge mistake’, says Merz

15 Jan 2026

Germany’s decision to shut down all its nuclear power plants was a “huge mistake” and has come at a high cost to the economy, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said yesterday, speaking to the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Dessau.

His comments reignited debate over the country’s long-term energy strategy and power generation capacity.

“It was a serious strategic mistake to phase out nuclear energy … we simply don’t have enough energy generation capacity,” Merz said.

continue reading HERE: Source:

https://brusselssignal.eu/2026/01/germanys-shut-down-of-nuclear-plants-a-huge-mistake-says-merz/

Ex-Eskom CEO Maroga calls out De Ruyter’s “engineering gibberish” about private sector’s rescue act

British Financial Empire, ESKOM, Nuclear Energy for Africa, South Africa,

Source: Biz News

Ex-Eskom CEO Maroga calls out De Ruyter’s “engineering gibberish” about private sector’s rescue act

18 Sept 2025
In this interview with BizNews, one former ESKOM CEO, Jacob Maroga, responds to the interview last week with another former CEO, André de Ruyter. He discusses the use – and cost – of coal, solar, gas, and nuclear – and shares outcomes elsewhere in the world. “…the reality that we’re going to have to deal with: we’re going to have to keep our coal much longer. And we’re going to have to do a lot of things to clean up our coal so that from an air quality it’s much cleaner,” he says. As for whether load shedding was likely to return, Maroga says: “…I’m confident that we’re not going to see the crisis that we’ve seen with Stage Six load shedding almost every day, but you cannot never say that it will never come back. There may be other reasons that cause it, but I think…we are beyond the worst.”

East Africa’s economic future with BRICS – 2025-35 (Featuring Nicholas Jones)

African High Speed Railway, Belt and Road, Current African News, Kenya, Nuclear Energy for Africa,

UNMISSABLE ! Positive Optimistic New Paradigm Future Africa ! excellent presentation from Nick Jones

Source: Rising Tide Foundation

East Africa’s economic future with BRICS – 2025-35 (Featuring Nicholas Jones)

13 Feb 2025

The Rising Tide Foundation East Africa’s economic future with BRICS – 2025-35 features guest speaker Nicholas Jones (RTF advisor, President of Artists Alliance for Africa) who will showcase the battle over the soul of Africa now underway. Subscribe to Nick’s Substack here: https://nicholas247.substack.com/ Follow Artists Alliance for Africa here: https://www.artistsallianceforafrica….

Russia, Ethiopia Sign Roadmap for Developing Cooperation in Peaceful Use of Nuclear Technologies

Belt and Road, Ethiopia, Nuclear Energy for Africa

Ethiopia continues to lead the way for Future Africa! With GERD and nuclear energy imagine the increase in industrial capacity!

re posted from                     SPUTNIK AFRICA

Russia, Ethiopia Sign Roadmap for Developing Cooperation in Peaceful Use of Nuclear Technologies

15:33 19.02.2025(Updated: 16:23 19.02.2025)
Welding of a block of protective tubes for a 440 MW water-cooled power reactor (VVER-440) at an Izhora Plants facility in St. Petersburg, Russia - Sputnik Africa, 1920, 19.02.2025
© Sputnik . Sergey Subbotin
On February 18, a high-level delegation from Russia led by Valentina Matvienko, the chair of the Federation Council, arrived in Addis Ababa. The delegation included senators from the upper house of the Russian parliament and representatives from 14 ministries and agencies.
Russia and Ethiopia signed a roadmap for the development of the countries’ cooperation in the field of using nuclear technologies for peaceful purposes. It followed a meeting between the country’s Minister of Economic Development, Maxim Reshetnikov, and the Ethiopian Minister of Innovation and Technology, Belete Molla.
continue reading HERE: Source:

PD Lawton interview with Ethiopia`s OBN Horn of Africa

British Financial Empire, Ethiopia, Nuclear Energy for Africa, South Africa,

I recently had the honour of an interview with OBN Horn of Africa on President Trump`s re-election and what this entails for Africa. We discussed  Ethiopia`s Green Legacy Initiative, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam ( GERD), nuclear energy and much more

Source: OBN Horn of Africa

Special edition

28 Jan 2025

USA seems more conservative under trump administration: PD Lawton

Ramokgopa makes the case for small modular reactors and the resuscitation of SA’s nuclear industry

Nuclear Energy for Africa, South Africa

unusual for the leftist media to report on the benefits of the cheapest and greenest form of energy

re posted from                                      THE DAILY MAVERICK

Ramokgopa makes the case for small modular reactors and the resuscitation of SA’s nuclear industry

Nuclear energy is back on the table in South Africa, but it is not likely to look like the sort of large-scale, conventional plant-build programme that was mooted under the tainted nuclear procurement programme of the Jacob Zuma presidency.

In a media briefing last week, Minister of Energy and Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa stressed that nuclear energy would be a crucial part of South Africa’s energy mix and that activity was under way to re-energise the country’s nuclear capacities.

He was specifically referring to small modular reactors (SMRs), not conventional large reactors like the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station.

Despite concerns about environmental impacts, high initial costs, regulatory hurdles and public scepticism, “what we have accepted is that SMRs are the future”, said Ramokgopa on 20 November.

“There’s about 50 to 60 different SMR technologies that are at different stages of concept. I think it’s only the Chinese that are advanced. We know that we’ve got the capability and in fact, the genesis of the current generation of small modular reactors is the PBMR [pebble bed modular reactor]. We have sunk over 10 billion, 12 billion rands into that programme [and then] abandoned it for reasons that were explained at the time.”

continue reading HERE: Source:

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-11-27-small-modular-reactors-and-the-future-of-sas-nuclear-industry/

Creative thinking needed for electricity and water challenges in the country

Current African News, ESKOM, Nuclear Energy for Africa, South Africa

re posted from                               THE SOWETAN

If you can put small nuclear electricity sources where you like, you can desalinate seawater on the KZN coast, and then pump it far inland. We already pump petrol and diesel from Durban to Johannesburg, through a long pipeline, so water is no problem. Just imagine how a guaranteed water supply will increase agricultural harvests, and make huge money for SA.

Creative thinking needed for electricity and water challenges in the country

Small nuclear reactors will solve both our water supply problems and power deficiency

By Kelvin Kemm – 05 November 2024 – 14:45

Reports say we will need 14,000km of new power lines. That will amount to some R200bn, which is enough to build over 30 small nuclear reactors, built in SA by South Africans, says the writer.

Reports say we will need 14,000km of new power lines. That will amount to some R200bn, which is enough to build over 30 small nuclear reactors, built in SA by South Africans, says the writer.
Image: ESA ALEXANDER

In Gauteng, there are warnings of water shortages. We also remember the Day Zero water shortage scare in Cape Town a few years ago.

SA does not have much inland water, so it is imperative to think deep into the future.

The reality is that our country needs to double its water supply. As industry expands it will need more water. The population is growing and moving up the social ladder, using more water. We can’t keep telling people to have short showers instead of a bath.

So, elementary water planning dictates that we must find a way to double the national supply.

Meanwhile, we also have an electricity supply issue. With that too, we need to aim for 100% increase. We constantly hear of plans to add more solar power to SA. But the really good sunshine is in the Northern Cape, and there is a snag. There are no more power lines from there to places like Gauteng or the Western Cape, where the electricity could be sold.

Solar enthusiasts say: “Just build more long-range transmission lines.”

But long-range transmission lines cost a lot of money. “But solar is so cheap,” say solar enthusiasts, “As long as you measure the price at our front gate, and somebody else, like Eskom, pays for the power lines, by collecting money from the consumers.”

Reports say we will need 14,000km of new power lines. That will amount to some R200bn, which is enough to build over 30 small nuclear reactors, built in SA by South Africans.

You only get solar power when the sun shines, with none at night, and little before mid-morning and after mid-afternoon.

No problem, say the sun worshippers, just add batteries, plus more solar panels to charge the batteries during the day, then you can use that electricity around sunset. “But that costs more money,” say the thinking people. Sun folks reply: “Increase the electricity price.”

Meanwhile, a small nuclear reactor will run continuously, with no batteries and no long transmission lines, because the South African small reactor has been designed to not need water-cooling, so, unlike Koeberg, it does not have to be on the coast. You can put one near a Free State gold mine, near Sasol, or near the new Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in northern Limpopo. So, you don’t need the long transmission lines. Reason therefore says; use the R200bn to build small reactors and put them near the consumers.

In fact, one can think of a cellphone cell system which is like the honeycomb of a beehive. Each cell has its own cellphone base tower, and that tower serves its cell. When you cross from one cell to the next the tower passes your signal to the next cell. The older conventional telephone system had big central telephone exchanges in the big cities, and they routed all the calls nationwide.

So, we need to think in terms of an electricity cell system, with small nuclear reactors effectively in cells. We still need a big new Koeberg, at a place like Jeffreys Bay, to push big electricity into the country from the side. Then we need another Koeberg on the Northern Cape coast, to push electricity in from the other side of the country.

We need the big and the small nuclear plants.

Returning to the water supply issue; Mother Nature is not going to increase rainfall by 100%. People say, “We are a water-poor country, so where will we get the water?” We get some water from Lesotho, through big pipelines. But the Lesotho source has its limits, too.

SA is not a water-poor country, we have the entire Indian and Atlantic oceans to drink. It is saltwater and is far from the inland consumers. Now think about another aspect, the water problem is actually an energy problem. SA recycles a huge amount of water which needs to be purified, then pumped into large reservoirs and pumped to consumers. The water from Lesotho needs to be pumped too. That all requires electricity.

If you can put small nuclear electricity sources where you like, you can desalinate seawater on the KZN coast, and then pump it far inland. We already pump petrol and diesel from Durban to Johannesburg, through a long pipeline, so water is no problem. Just imagine how a guaranteed water supply will increase agricultural harvests, and make huge money for SA.

We have a small nuclear reactor, developed in Pretoria, the HTMR-100. It is ready to build now. The team is negotiating with various international entities to raise the money. Then we can build and so produce many high-skill permanent jobs for South Africans.

We need to believe in the South African teams and support them to build our own nuclear in our own national interest.

  • Dr Kelvin Kemm is a nuclear physicist and chair of Stratek Global, a nuclear project management company based in Pretoria

Source:

https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/opinion/2024-11-05-opinion-creative-thinking-needed-for-electricity-and-water-challenges-in-the-country/