Africa's nuclear power push faces big obstacles

Arguably, no form of technology has sparked both fear and enthusiasm as nuclear energy.

In the 1950s, the peaceful use of nuclear fission boomed, and it remains to this day the ultimate deterrent in military matters.

Significant nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island (Pennsylvania, 1979), Chernobyl (Soviet Union, 1986), and Fukushima (Japan, 2011) dampened support for atomic energy.

More recently it has been touted as a low carbon and therefore environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels.

Africa currently has only one nuclear power station in Koeberg, near Cape Town, South Africa. But that may soon change.

African nuclear ambitions — from 'certain' to 'unrealistic'

In 2025, South African journalist Tristen Taylor conducted an in-depth study of the nuclear ambitions of African countries.

His report was published by the Cape Town office of Germany's Green party-aligned Heinrich Böll Foundation.

"Africa is a blue sky country for all the vendors and in particular South Korea, China and Russia," Taylor told DW.

"This is where they will have a possible growth market. It's just whether African countries can have their act together to tender, do the contracts, have the financial mechanisms in place," he said, adding the International Atomic Energy Agency helps countries with the necessary preparations.

According to Taylor's report, Egypt has the best prospects of getting a nuclear reactor online. Russian state atomic energy corporation Rosatom began building a plant at el-Dabaa, on Egypt's northern coast in 2022.

Atomic ambitions of Sahel nations like Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso remain unrealistic, Taylor said, despite those nations having signed deals with Rosatom.

"When they're signing a nuclear agreement with Russia, it's basically they're saying that Russia backs them politically," Taylor told DW, noting that countries are "always signing nuclear agreements."

"They actually don't mean much in and of themselves. If you get, say, a long period of nuclear agreements where there's actually some action, then you can begin to say 'Okay, well maybe something is moving.'"

South Africa: new plans

Africa's only nuclear power station is located near Cape Town. The two reactors at Koeberg came online in the mid-1980s with support from a French consortium during the Apartheid regime, is rated for just under 2,000 megawatts (MW), and produces about 4% of South Africa's electricity.

In 2025, Koeberg's operating permit was extended for another 20 years, despite environmentalists' concerns about Koeberg-2.

Francesca de Gasparis of the Southern African Faith Communities' Environment Institute (SAFCEI), said there were questions around safety standards and maintenance by operator Eskom, South Africa's beleaguered state-owned power utility.

"When we look at best practices from other countries where they do take nuclear energy power plant risks seriously, there's a requirement to first do the necessary maintenance testing, ensure the monitoring equipment is up to date, and ensure there are international upgrades that we've learned from Fukushima and other disasters," de Gasparis said.

"All of that should have happened first, so that the risk, the burden, is placed on the actual energy producer," she told DW.

Critics say this did not happen at Koeberg. Meanwhile, Eskom is preparing to build a bigger, 4,000-MW facility at nearby Duynefontein. De Gasparis criticized the lack of transparency and the use of what she said was outdated data.

Eskom told DW it would answer questions regarding reactor safety. However, no statement had been received by the time this article was published.

Ghana: dual risk

In West Africa, Ghana has courted suppliers from France, China, South Korea, Russia, or the United States to develop its nuclear power plans. Some reports suggest that construction could begin in 2027, but details on contracts have not been publicly released.

Alongside a conventional power station, Ghana is exploring the use of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), which are significantly smaller, easier to run and have fewer safety risks.

So far, each of the more than 650 conventional reactors built worldwide is unique and poses its own specific risks.

Therefore, the price per kilowatt-hour for nuclear power is significantly higher than for renewable energy sources — wind, solar, and hydro — which have become very affordable, according to European data. SMRs could narrow this gap through mass production. But so far, only prototypes exist.

Kenya: ambitious timeframe for nuclear power

Kenyan President William Ruto announced in late March that construction of a 2,000-MW nuclear plant would begin in Siaya on the shores of Lake Victoria near the border with Uganda. The project is slated to start producing power in 2034, though delays and budget overruns are not uncommon in the industry.  

According to researcher Tristen Taylor, challenges remain: In early 2025, Kenya's cabinet dissolved the national nuclear authority, NuPEA, as part of broader austerity measures. But this decision has not yet taken effect because it was never ratified by Parliament.

"We need a comprehensive study to show what effects the nuclear power plant would have on the fishing communities that rely on Lake Victoria, because fishing is their main source of income," Kenyan environmentalist Phyllis Omido told DW.

She said that she fears the transport of nuclear fuel through the country could be dangerous for citizens.

Omido, who was awarded the 2023 Right Livelihood Award, and the Center for Justice Governance and Environmental Action (CJGEA), which she co-founded, has for years fought against attempts to build a nuclear power plant near the coastal area of Kilifi for years.

Fears of atomic waste

Figuring out what to do with radioactive nuclear waste, which survives for millennia, is still a burning concern for all nations that use nuclear power.

"We are against anything nuclear, unless they give us a tangible solution on how this waste is going to be handled," Omido told DW. "Going and burying it in communities is not a solution."

South Africa stores its nuclear waste in Vaalputs, a sparsely populated region in the Northern Cape province. But this is only for some low- to medium-level contaminated waste. Highly radioactive nuclear fuel is still stored in Koeberg.

The government plans to have a final repository operational by 2065, a goal about which activists are skeptical.

"I don't think there is an easy solution for high-level waste," said SAFCEI's de Gasparis, "which is exactly why we don't think we should be planning to produce a lot more and giving ourselves an even bigger problem further down the line."

This article was originally published in German.