African countries planning to follow South Africa’s lead in developing a nuclear power program face talent and investment challenges, executives and officials warned at the World Nuclear Symposium.
South Africa’s decades-long failure to expand its nuclear efforts has led to developers, engineers, and operators leaving for better opportunities. Egypt is building four nuclear power units, while Ghana and Rwanda are leading the race to deploy the continent’s first small modular reactors. But, as countries without active nuclear programs, they must all build a base of workers from scratch.
The difficulty in scaling nuclear energy in Africa is the perceived risk associated with investing in infrastructure projects, said attendees at last week’s event in London. African governments have long complained that ratings agencies unfairly downgrade them relative to non-African peers, pushing up borrowing costs. “Let’s do these projects, bearing in mind that the first ones will suffer that risk premium. But going forward, we need to be challenging systemically… those sort of perceptions,” said Loyiso Tyabashe, chief executive of the South Africa Nuclear Energy Corporation.
Last month, MTN Nigeria’s chief executive made the case for more nuclear power in Africa to supply the continent’s new data centers in the pipeline.