Nuclear power to fast-track industrialisation

A Deputy Minister of Energy, William Owuraku Aidoo, says the inclusion of nuclear power into Ghana’s energy mix is in line with the government’s short-to-medium term target to speed up the country’s industrialisation agenda as well as to deal with current global challenges of climate change.

He noted Ghana’s commitment to nuclear power initiatives, which led to the establishment of the Ghana Nuclear Power Programme Organisation (GNPPO) in 2012, and, subsequently, the signing of memorandum of understandings (MoUs) and agreements on cooperation on the peaceful uses of atomic energy, which included the construction of a nuclear power plant in Ghana.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of a three-day workshop organised by Nuclear Power Ghana (NPG) for selected media personnel in Accra, Mr Owuraku Aidoo disclosed that steps were being taken to finalise the selection of a preferred site for Ghana’s first nuclear power plant.

“Recently, Ghana issued a request for information of the RFI as part of the required processes to identify a vendor country and nuclear technology. Currently, the RFI evaluation report is under review and the government will soon announce the vendor and technology to adopt,” he said.

A vendor partner would be the country Ghana will approve to build the first nuclear plant on its soil.

Sites

In a presentation, the NPG Executive Director, Dr. Stephen Yamoah, said, having identified four sites for the construction of the plant this year, his outfit is on target to select the preferred site.

“There’s been progress, and by the end of the year, I can confidently say that the report will be ready, and it will be taken through the regulatory process,” he said.

He added: “We are selecting the preferred site and a second option so that once we go to the preferred site, and we start doing the detailed site characterization and it turns out that for one or two reasons we may have to look at another site, then we already have that. In the end, our recommendation to the government is not going to be one candidate or preferred site, but the preferred and a second option. There’s always backup.”

Explaining the criteria that go into the selection of a site, Dr. Yamoah disclosed: “We need a lot of water for cooling so one of the criteria that we use is where are we going to get water. So eventually, we settled along the coast so we can get large volumes of water. We are not looking at one year of cooling, but 60 years and beyond.”

“We also needed a place where the earthquake activity is very low, a place preferably zero, just like the middle to the Northern part of Ghana, but with issues of water so we canceled that option. We looked at areas with low population. We are not just looking at the present, but also projecting it into the future, 60 years and beyond. We are looking at grid issues in terms of evacuating the power. What are the technicalities with respect to that? We looked at the rock formation, how strong and deep the rock underneath the soil as well as how low or high the underground water bodies are,” he added.

He said they also factored in the issue of endangered species, as they didn’t want to touch reserved areas.

“These are the areas we considered. Atmospheric conditions were also considered, areas that are clouded or prone to storms. The temperatures of the sea and river bodies were also among other things considered,” NPG Executive Director said