Is it just me or is anybody else frightened by this prospect? If they can’t keep NEPA running now then how will they keep the reactors cool later?…..
Nigeria is planning to introduce nuclear energy, pledging to open a nuclear power plant in the next 12 years.
President Olusegun Obasanjo told reporters this week that Nigeria had already marked ‘day one in the timeline of our nuclear electricity program’ in an effort to meet the country`s growing energy needs and promised that the program would be dedicated solely to the use of peaceful nuclear technology.
‘I wish to affirm that Nigeria`s aspirations for the acquisition of nuclear technology are for purely peaceful applications,’ he said Monday in the capital, Abuja. ‘We are unequivocally committed to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty … [and] shall position our country to derive maximum benefits from the proper application of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.’
Analysts said that the country`s intentions would likely meet little suspicion from the international community over a weapons program, though some question the feasibility of creating a productive nuclear energy plant. Less than half of Nigeria`s 130 million people have access to electricity and even those areas where the affluent live see regular power outages and rolling blackouts.
The Nigerian president, however, seemed undaunted by the prospect of challenges that lay ahead for a country that often has difficulty meeting its domestic energy needs despite being the largest oil producer on the continent and a major supplier to the United States.
Nigeria is the fifth-largest supplier of crude to the United States — after Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela — and accounts for 1.075 million barrels per day.
Though it is the world`s eighth-largest oil exporter, production has been hampered in recent months due to attacks on oil installations by militant groups calling for more equitable profit-sharing from oil revenue with the country`s vast poor, many of who reside in the country`s oil-rich Niger Delta.
Obasanjo maintained that nuclear technology would allow Nigeria to ‘diversify our electricity generation’ beyond the country`s traditional means of producing power such as hydroelectric plants, which have been running well below capacity for years.
Experts like Jon Wolfsthal, a nonproliferation fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington note that Nigeria faces a number of obstacles in trying to provide viable nuclear energy to its people.
‘Countries with primitive energy infrastructures [like Nigeria] have a long way to go towards having a productive nuclear power generator,’ Wolfsthal told United Press International Wednesday.
Nigeria`s power grid is considered primitive among international standards and would have to be completely upgraded to be compatible with a nuclear energy source, he said.
‘When you build a nuclear power plant you have to have something to hook it up to’ he said.
Fortunately for Nigeria, the state coffers are awash in oil revenue, having earned $300 billion since the 1970s. Wolfsthal noted that other oil-producing nations, such as Iran, have also looked to nuclear energy, as rising global oil prices make the fossil fuel prohibitively expensive for use as home.
Wolfsthal predicted that Nigeria would likely have to shell out somewhere between $1 billion and $2 billion for a single light-water reactor that would have to be contracted out to foreign companies. Meanwhile, the cost of constructing an updated power grid for a population 130-million strong and growing rapidly would likely be much higher.
In addition to costs, Nigeria must also procure the raw uranium needed for refinement in a nuclear reactor. The country does have some uranium deposits, though it is unclear whether they would meet the nation`s growing energy needs.