Two countries known for their expertise in nuclear power technologies–Russia and Korea—have agreed with the East African nation, Uganda, to build two nuclear power stations that will generate 15,600 megawatts of power.
One of the plants will generate 7,000MW of power while the other will produce 8,400MW.
“We have agreed with Russian and Koreans to build two uranium power stations for electricity,” President of Uganda H.E. Yoweri Museveni said at a coffee summit in Russia a few days ago.
He, however, did not provide details as to how the project would be funded or when it would commence.
Currently, Uganda generates about 1402MW of power but only 800MW is consumed, leaving the rest not consumed, which the government plans to export abroad.
According to President Museveni, Uganda has uranium deposits, which are used for the production of nuclear power, adding that several investors have approached him to mine them for export which he rejected.
“A Western company proposed to mine uranium. I asked them, ‘Mine it and take it where?’ They said to export it. Did I ask to export it for what purpose? They told me, ‘We want to take uranium’,” President Museveni said.
He said he refused because Uganda still has power challenges and that if they wanted uranium, they should start by processing it in Uganda for power generation.
He said he banned the export of raw materials because the country would lose money and jobs if the raw materials are processed abroad.
Citing an example, he said an Indian investor in iron ore approached him to mine and export iron ore to India, but in his investigations, he found out that Uganda is only going to get US$47 (about Shs168, 000) from a tonne of iron ore and if it was processed, the investors would make US$700 (about Shs2.5m) from the quantity of raw materials.
“I told them to process the iron here,” he said.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
