South Africa: A Leader on the Continent for Nuclear Energy
Mr. Kelvin Kemm, in this in-depth interview, excerpted below, discusses the realm of energy choices for South Africa as well for other African nations. More are considering nuclear energy as a safe and reliable power source for their economies. Mr. Kemm also discusses the anti-nuclear lobby and the causes for climate change. I recommend you spend the time to read through the entire interview.
“South Africa Builds on Its Nuclear Success”
Interview With Kelvin Kemm, who is chairman of the board of the government-owned South African Nuclear Energy Corporation, known as NECSA,
Kemm: “The current situation is that nuclear is still on the agenda exactly as it was; it’s unchanged. There’s been somewhat of a delay because of various issues—we have a new President now, as of a couple of months ago, and a new Minister of Energy. But nothing has changed with the plan to add 9,600 MW of nuclear—to the existing total from all sources of 45,000-plus MW of electric power.
“However, the wind and solar people have been making a lot noise and made quite a few inroads, in that they’ve influenced the public thinking a lot. In doing this, they’ve done quite a bit of sabotage of nuclear, in the sense that they spread false stories that nuclear power will kill your children, and that there’s an unsolved waste problem, and that South African workers will not be able to meet exacting nuclear standards.
“In contrast…We say that you’re not going to run electric trains across the country on solar and wind, you’re not going run the gold mines; but we have no objection to solar and wind where they can work—in rural areas and in small applications, dedicated applications, which is in stark contrast to the anti-nuclear people, who condemn anything that has the word “nuclear” associated with it.
“I’d like to branch into something else, that there’s a lot of nuclear technology which is not nuclear power. So while the extreme greens are attacking the nuclear concept, they’re doing a lot of other damage. For example, South Africa is currently the second biggest supplier in the world of nuclear medicine; we’re major suppliers to the United States. In Pretoria we’ve got the only nuclear reactor in the world that runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, producing nuclear medicine for the world, with deliveries taking place three or four times a day, every day of the year, including weekends and public holidays. We send this nuclear medicine around the world. It is a great life-saver for cancer patients, for example, and in diagnosing other diseases.
“Last year, in 2017, I was invited to speak at the inaugural African Union Economic Platform meeting in Mauritius. One of the things I mentioned in my presentation was nuclear power for other African countries, and I was inundated with reaction.
“Half-a-dozen-plus countries, now, have already spoken to us directly, asking if we can supply nuclear power to them. Now, that is in the form of the pebble-bed modular reactor (PBMR), which South Africa developed a number of years ago. That reactor got to the point where we were ready to start constructing the first prototype, when the government of the day then put the project on ice. They didn’t actually close it down, but they put it into such low gear that it eventually stumbled to an effective standstill.
“Golly, how can you have an African country dependent on rainfall to keep the lights on? You just can’t do that. And numbers of them said they had no coal, oil, or gas.
“They said, what’s next? The anti-nuclear lobby has been going on with their hand-waving and demonstrating, to get solar and wind, but many of them have been very senseless. Hey, wait a minute—you don’t get solar at night. And so hopefully the wind blows. What happens when the wind doesn’t blow? Now, you’ve got nothing. And the
green just say, well, that’s the way Mother Nature designed it: Live with it.
“And so, many African countries have gotten wise about it, saying, wait a minute, we’re about to get suckered here into this thing. And they’ve realized now that the only solution they’ve got is to go for PBMR-type nuclear. because with nuclear, you can stockpile fuel very easily, for a very long period of time. It’s very easy to keep a year or two, or three, or four of nuclear fuel supply in a couple of bunkers, because the volume is so small; whereas you could never keep two or three years’ worth of coal in a pile around a power station. Here in South Africa, we try to keep a two-week emergency supply of coal at power stations, and even that is a mountain of coal “the size of an Egyptian pyramid.” And they go through that very quickly”
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New British Attack on the New Paradigm in South Africa
Oct. 23, 2017–British Lord Peter Hain is leading a new attack on the South African flank of the New Paradigm of the BRICS and BRI. His fake news is that South African President Jacob Zuma and members of his family are part of a criminal “transnational money-laundering network”; he announced, in this manner, in the House of Lords on Oct. 19, the British Crown’s orchestrated offensive against President Zuma and his faction in the ruling African National Congress (ANC)–including Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, his intended successor as ANC President and President of South Africa.
Hain served under Tony Blair–of Iraq War ill-repute—as Minister for Africa, Minister for Europe, Leader of the House of Commons, Privy Counsellor, and Lord Privy Seal. The Queen conferred on him a life peerage in 2015.
Hain has written to Chancellor of the Exchequer Phillip Hammond, expressing his concern that HSBC and Standard Chartered banks may have “wittingly or unwittingly” laundered funds for what he calls the “Gupta/Zuma criminal network,” a “transnational money-laundering network.” His letter names more than forty members of the Zuma and Gupta families, some other individuals, and related entities. The list includes the names of President Jacob Zuma and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
The Chancellor has responded, reporting that he has referred Hain’s letter to British law enforcement agencies, including the Serious Fraud Office. The U.S. Department of Justice and FBI have also been brought in.
This fraudulent attack comes just two months before the ANC election of a new party president, who will become the party’s candidate for President of South Africa in 2019. The chief contenders for party president are Dlamini-Zuma and London’s candidate, Cyril Ramaphosa, who scarcely conceals his satisfaction over the British attack on the Zuma faction. Ramaphosa said on Oct. 20 that the South African state has been “captured by people who want to milk the state, who want to rob our country of the money that belongs to the people,” and called on public servants to testify “when a commission of inquiry into state capture is set up.” (That “narrative” includes the now familiar condemnation of any major infrastructure by the government as “looting.”) South Africa’s opposition parties have also opportunistically chimed in, in support of the British attack.
At an overflowing campaign rally for Dlamini-Zuma in Evaton Township, Oct. 22, members of her team were aggressive in denouncing the British attack. Earlier in the day, Dlamini-Zuma’s aide, Carl Niehaus, told the press, “We are not going to be told, by British people who think they can still behave like colonialists and [can continue] neocolonial behavior, how we should deal with a situation in our country!”
Tshepo Kgadima, a political analyst for South Africa’s African News Network television (ANN7), commented that evening that Hain “wants to ensure that colonial rule will reign supreme on the peoples of this land, and that is despicable.” It is “nothing but the return of the old enemy that has been there from the time that we established democratic rule in South Africa.” Indeed it is, and a look at history shows that the “old enemy” has a much, much longer history in South Africa.
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British Drive Against BRICS Member South Africa Intensifies
David Cherry and Ramasimong Phillip Tsokolibane
March 23, 2015
As South Africa’s government continues to orient toward the BRICS system and nuclear power, the global British-centered financial power is increasingly launching operations—through its institutions and networks— to reverse this turn away from the British system. These British operations are run from the U.K., the United States, and Europe—and in South Africa, from Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town, and elsewhere