KPLC Blackout – Kenya moving towards Nuclear Power Generation
Last nights blackout is totally unacceptable no matter what the excuse. For a country that is developing at such a high pace, to be plunged in total darkness brings around far too many questions. One of them being what was being done for the citizens security while the country was pitch dark?
Last evening there was a power outage at about 6.00PM, thinking this is probably just within the area, we just lightly ignored it and went on with our own business. When I logged onto twitter from my mobile to catchup with my tweets, I was taken by surprised as how my fellow tweeps from all over the country were complaining about not having any power.
Thinking back on an argument held with some of the tweeps I follow, more specifically @jellyfish78 & @coldtusker in regards to getting nuclear power, question I still put across is, are we capable of handling nuclear power?
It took KPLC a good 4+ Hours to restore power to the country, with nuclear power, you need to be alot faster than that if things started falling apart. I would like @jellyfish78 on this, his support for going nuclear is almost extremist. Not that I do not support him at all, just that I have far to many questions on the ability of running it:-
- Expertise – Who will handle the nuclear power plant?
- Security – How would nuclear material be handled? How would the location be secured?
- Water – Nuclear turbines require alot of water. To give you an idea, take for example At Sellafield, which is no longer producing electricity, a maximum of 18,184.4 m³ a day (over 4 million gallons) and 6,637,306 m³ a year (figures from the Environment Agency) of fresh water from Wast Water is still abstracted to use on site for various processes. Take note FRESH WATER. We cannot provide half of Kenya’s population with fresh water.
- Radioactive waste – Where will the radio active waste be disposed and how will the costs of this be met? Part of the process of radioactive waste “After about 5 years in a cooling pond, the spent fuel is radioactively and thermally cool enough to handle, and it can be moved to dry storage casks or reprocessed.”
At the moment the government has stated they cannot even get a new switchboard for the national grid that would cost around 3billion kenya shillings ($40million), so how will they even maintain nuclear?
By the way I have not even been able to access http://www.kplc.co.ke/ for further info on last nights happenings.
Please share your views and comments.
This post has 12 comments
November 2nd, 2009
Nuclear Power is years away… probably decades since Nuclear Power Stations need to be ordered & are manufactured by very few vendors…
I feel its better to exploit the GeoThermal sources first…
November 2nd, 2009
Kenya is a very lucky country with the geo thermals available. its a green alternative and its renewable.
Yes nuclear power will take too much time, but also look at how much it will cost the country. The country does not even collect enough revenue to support daily needs.
November 2nd, 2009
I agree with ColdTusker,A project of this magnitude is unlikely to survive our 5 Year election cycle.
I’d propose Geothermal as well and a set of incentives, perhaps a different set of Tarrifs + Tax Incentives to promote co-generation (eg Mumias Sugar ~ http://bit.ly/kCl2Q and KDN ~ http://bit.ly/35QoKX)
November 2nd, 2009
I hardly doubt govt. would give great incentives to private industries for co-generation. The govt. has never really been good at incentives. Plus mumias and the like pump in too little to make a a vast difference. Yes Collectively it can make a difference, but it boils down to incentives again.
Wind is another great alternative.
November 2nd, 2009
I can see it would besome problems with funding and building a plant. Which will cost from 1 billion $.
In Denmark we also had a power outage in 2002 for half the country, for a up to 6 hours. But I cannot recal other national outages since. Just locals.
November 2nd, 2009
I am of the school of thought that countries like Kenya doesn’t necessarily have to follow development paths the western world has followed to get to where they are. Cell phones being a good example. We practically skipped the whole land line phase – simply because it just wasn’t feasible and mobile phones make much more sense, are more efficient and work towards development of different sectors such as agricultural trade and so on. However with the issue of electricity and it’s generation, we have to be realistic. Like onlinemaasai says…the country was in darkness for 4 hours last night – the ENTIRE country! If the current power grid cannot be maintained effectively, nuclear power generation is not exactly the best option. With all the intricacies of nuclear power generation outlined in this post, we will have a royal disaster on our hands! I agree – geo thermal energy is one of our best bets. We were the first African country to put up a geo thermal plant, it’s not that foreign an idea to us – we just need to use darn three plants that we have! We need to use what we have first before we get ourselves into a mess. Wind is also an area that needs to be looked into. But great great post!
November 2nd, 2009
@crystal, I couldn’t have said it any better. You summed it up pretty well. And to add on, we also have almost perfected geo thermal. So we should exploit its full potential.
But when we come to rely on hydro for power, then we need to really take care of our environment too. The MAU ring a bell? Not just the Mau but all other water catchment areas in the region.
November 2nd, 2009
@daniel, was the power being provided through nuclear at the time?
November 2nd, 2009
For my thoughts on why Kenya should adopt nuclear energy read this http://jellyfishcoolman.wordpress.com/2009/08/02/nuclear-power-for-kenya/ To add or rather correct some misconceptions.
1. Not all nuclear reactors use fresh water for cooling in their operations. If you read my article you will see several types of nuclear reactors using different technologies to generate electricity. Sea water which is quite plentiful can also be used.
2. On security Kenya has a number of military barracks and other national security locations including the HQ of the NSIS. I have never in our history heard of a succesful raid or breach on this facilities. We could place the nuclear power plant under the protection of the military and further we have some British & American marines stationed in Kenya. We could ask them to provide further backup if needed though it wouldn’t be necessary.
3. Expertise. Many national facilities in Kenya have been built and operated with expatriate help. The geothermal power stations are very complex to build and Kenya sometimes makes use of expatriates to build them. Lack of expertise is not an impediment. We have asked the French to help put up a plant so it ca be done. Kenya has KQ our national airline which is doing very well though we don’t build aeroplanes. In any case the country does have a nuclear science academy in the University of Nairobi and the IAEA has offered to train our people to handle nuclear power.
4. Radioactive waste. This is perhaps the trickiest point but it too is addressed in my article. France which produces 78% of its electricity from nuclear does have solutions for the reprocessing of nuclear fuel rods. We could sign an agreement whereby they would take back the spent fuel rods for reprocessing. The Russian nuclear reactor deal has a similar proposal.
Additional points. The power blackout experienced yesterday was primarily a transmission fault not a generation fault. In any case passive nuclear reactors are very safe and are designed to switch off automatically without the need for human intervention. On the question that it takes too long to build a nuclear plant I ask how long does it take to build a hydropower dam? Indeed the Sondu Miriu project has taken yrs to construct and so did the Turkwell Gorge and every other hydropower dam. The length of time taken to construct is not the issue since we are planning for the future. Even oil drilling, geothermal plants and windfarms take considerable time to build. Finally on cost nuclear power is just as capital intensive as any other large-scale energy project. The windfarm currently being built in Loyangalani which I have covered on my blog is a US$ 700million project. We could build a nuclear plant for that amount.
To argue passionately for nuclear power does not equal to being extremist. Indeed it is possible to be extremist in the opposition to nuclear as well. I have instead argued for an energy mix that is reliable, green and liberates us from having to import oil with all the negatives that brings. In my blog I have highlighted other forms of energy wind, solar, geothermal & hydropower. I realise many are prejudiced against nuclear due to political, technological, economic or ignorance but I respect their right to hold those opinions. As Kenyans try to object to this power source it is important to note all the major powers of the world right now use nuclear energy to supplement their energy needs and it is a growing industry and the technology is getting better everyday.
November 2nd, 2009
Jellyfish, thank you very much for the response from the other side of the fence. Indeed all your responses to my questions and probably others makes a lot of sense. I absolutely love the positiveness and hope that we can all be equally positive with forging ahead in providing the country with the power it requires.
November 2nd, 2009
Geo-thermal is already proven in Kenya thus (potentially) easier to expand using existing knowledge.
As mentioned by Daniel Graversen, it is an expensive undertaking but raising funds should not be a problem based on the appetite for recent Rights Issues as well as Bond Issues. Such projects will also attract attractively priced government to government funding, Development Funds as well as larger investment organisations.
November 2nd, 2009
It is claimed that Kenya has a potential of producing over 7000MW of geothermal power and our consumption is less than 2000MW. If we can fully exploit this potential we would fulfill our needs and export the rest.
Word is that Geothermal Development Company is to be launched later on this month to spearhead the geothermal power quest. I hope this will not turn out to be a mirage or white elephant.