Wednesday 9 October 2019

Ghanaians Must Not Be So Foolhardy As To Venture To Build Nuclear Power Plants

One hopes that the greedy,  well-educated and not-so-wise-experts  amongst Ghana's vampire-elites, whose consciences have apparently been bought by the very corrupt state-owned Russian nuclear power  company, Rosatom - according to bush-telegraph sources - who are pushing hard for a  nuclear power plant to be built in Ghana for that reason, will read this. What is wrong with planning to be powered by 100 percent renewable energy by  2030 - instead of hanging a nuclear-millstone around  Mother Ghana's neck, I ask? Our democratic nation's sustainable future,  as a prosperous and all-inclusive African society, ought to be underpinned by 100 percent renewable energy.

Furtheremore, will such a low carbon sustainable development initiative not enable Ghanaians to have truly affordable electricity? And, will it not also make businesses in Ghana a tad more competitive, and enable them win significant  market share, in different sectors of the newly-created African common market? Haaba. It is instructive that to date, no one in officialdom has been able to tell the good people of Ghana, precisely how they will protect society from the proposed nuclear power plant's radioactive waste (waste that will remain dangerous for thousands of years, incidentally).

Who is not aware that radioactive waste has  to be securely stored, and guarded, all year round? Hmmm, Oman Ghana, eyeasem ooooo - asem kesie ebeba debi ankasa. Yooooo...
Even technologically  advanced, and super-wealthy, Japan, is struggling to deal with the waste from the earthquake-damaged Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant. Is the latest news from Japan not that having run out of safe storage space,  the radioactive waste from that crippled  Japanese nuclear power plant, will now  have to be dumped into the Pacific Ocean? Horrific. Clearly, we must be realistic and wise, in this matter.

The question we must all ponder over is: Does it make sense for a corruption-riddled  African nation, whose professional classes seldom follow construction project-contract-specifications, and lack a maintenance culture, on top of that, to attempt to build nuclear power plants? Finally, in one's humble view, as a people, Ghanaians must not be so foolhardy as to venture to build nuclear power plants,  any time soon. Not when even the "head of the biggest utility company in America" acknowledges that "renewables and batteries win on costs, wind and solar will replace coal by 2030, and batteries can do most of the required balancing"  - to quote Australian Giles Parkinson's online platform, RenewEconomy. Hmmm. Yooooo...

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