Atomic power project on course, says Jonathan

THE Federal Government has stepped up moves to establish atomic power project with due consideration for its implications.  

 The development was scripted to align with government’s power-sufficiency agenda for the country. 

 President Goodluck Jonathan, who disclosed this at Olorunshogo, Ogun State recently, emphasized that the project, planned for take-off by 2020, is on course with necessary consultations ongoing.

  He however noted that the government is very conscious about the likely implications of the atomic project, therefore the Nigerian Atomic Energy Commission would be mandated to monitor its operations when completed.

  Besides, the President identified other sources of energy abundant within the geographical territory of the country to include Solar, water coal, and gas. He therefore called for full harmonization of the resources.

   “We have the potentials to generate enough power for our domestic use in this country, we can harness our gas, water resources already we are working on two dams in the North, our coal reserve is abundant. The very unpopular one is the energy from atomic sources, which we are working very hard to deploy. The National Atomic Agency will always control it because of its sensitiveness and implications of developing that project.

  “The solar is also abundant in the Northern part of the country, so we can explore all these resources to enhance power supply and stimulate growth of small and medium enterprises. We are lucky as a nation that we have all these resources,” he said.

   The Chairman and Chief Executive of Nigerian Atomic Energy Commission, Erepamo Osaisai, had recently stated that Nigeria would require N90 trillion ($550 billion) to meet its goal of adequate electric power supply in the next 30 years.

   Osaisai said: “Estimates using international benchmarks suggest $900 billion will be required over the next 30 years to achieve the specific sector targets $550 billion for power and $350 billion for oil and gas, which includes maintenance cost,” Osaisai said.

  He noted that Nigeria had an abundance of most of the energy sources (fossil fuels, hydro, (nuclear is missing) solar, tidal, geothermal, and biomass) for power generation, which if properly harnessed, could meet the country’s energy needs and generate export revenue.

   He noted that the projects for the emplacement of the requisite nuclear power infrastructure for education, training and research are at various stages of completion in the seven supervised nuclear energy research centres.

  According to him, some preliminary site selection activities had been concluded and two suitable sites had emerged for which detailed evaluation studies would be conducted on the approval of the Federal Government.