Browsing: Nuclear

It is almost inconceivable and rather far-fetched to associate Africa with  nuclear proliferation, yet ahead of the forthcoming International Day against Nuclear Tests observed annually on the 29th of August, it is imperative to not only commemorate the history of the continent’s brush with nuclear tests, whose effects have ironically recently surfaced on a higher magnitude in another continent, but also to formulate feasible strategies for the continent to tap into and harness nuclear power as a viable option to meeting the gaping energy deficits to drive industrialization and economic transformation.  

Africa’s dark colonial past comes calling back with the recent occurrence of massive clouds of radioactive dust making a return on French soil, emanating from the Sahara Desert where nuclear colonial heirlooms buried decades ago continue to be unearthed by the day. The event stirs up a cauldron of repressed haunting memories that best remain buried in history …

Tanzania has set regional precedence by establishing an Atomic Energy Commission and gone ahead to start construction of a state of the art laboratory designed manage use of radioactive materials.

In Sub-Sahara Africa, the country is only second to South Africa in this frontier and has already begun the first phase of construction works. Valued at 2.5bn/- the first phase of the lab construction begun last year and is designed to meet global operation and calibration standards in atomic energy and nuclear.

It may come as a surprise to you as it did to me to learn of this rather unsettling development; a third world country building an atomic management laboratory to rival world standards. Well, that is the case until you learn that this third world country is also gearing to start mining uranium.

This explanation is plausible, as we have been predisposed to this reality by Hollywood blockbuster …