Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00United States Africa nuclear energy summits taking place in Kenya, with discussions covering the
00:06technical and financial ground to be covered by countries hoping to invest in nuclear power
00:12plants. Our Bastien Renwi has been following it for us. As Africa continues to develop,
00:18it needs more electricity. It's based on this simple observation that the United States
00:22decided to hold this summit. South Africa is the only country on the continent to use nuclear
00:28energy. Egypt is currently building two nuclear reactors with the help of Russia,
00:32and several other countries are interested in the technology. Rwanda recently signed an
00:37agreement to build an experimental power plant on its territory, and Kenya would like to use
00:42the technology before 2034. But it's a huge investment, an investment that is worth it,
00:48according to this Kenyan engineer. If you look at our pockets, at our budgets, to be truly honest,
00:52coal is better, right? But the issue with coal is that we don't want to follow the development
00:57model of the West. When the West was developing, the only option they had was coal and fossil
01:03fuels. A lot of the global warming we're talking about is from the emissions from fossil fuels and
01:08from coal. So as a society that is very conscious about our place in the environment, we looked
01:12around and we saw that nuclear is clean, it's safe, and it's easily deployable. Of course,
01:18there's a lot of investment that needs to be done up front, but that's a good challenge, right? We
01:21have a solution to what we have locally, just about getting the correct partners. A clean and
01:26safe energy, according to this specialist, but many here in Kenya disagree. Several NGOs are
01:30fighting the project. They say that it could have a huge impact on tourism and that in case of an
01:35incident, it could be harmful for the people and for the environment. But despite this criticism,
01:40the government is already working on the project. It's currently looking for 3.5
01:45billion euros to fund its nuclear power plant.