With nuclear energy, Nigeria can have predictable electricity prices for 60 years

Nigeria’s expedition into Nuclear energy seems to be gathering momentum. The country has taken even more steps in that direction since it signed a cooperation accord with Russia towards the construction of its first nuclear power plant in 2012.

While this has garnered positive attention from many observers across the world, it has also gathered criticism from naysayers who compare the country with a toddler who has not learned to walk, but is in a hurry to run.
However, not many people understand nuclear power like Dr. Kirill Komarov. As First Deputy CEO of Rosatom, Russia’s nuclear energy company, he believes that the country is more than ready for nuclear energy.

In this exclusive interview with Hi-Tech, he talks about nuclear’s ability to transform the nation’s power sector, and invariably the economy at predictable costs. Excerpts:
By Prince Osuagwu

WHAT brought you here?

Nigeria is very interesting to us at Rosatom from several points of view. We are a very unique organisation which combines two statuses at the same time. One is the status of Ministry of nuclear energy in Russia, and the second is our status as a commercial organisation.

We own more than 400 business entities. But the most unique is that we are the only organisation in the world that combines all the technological elements in the nuclear area; from mining and enrichment of uranium to production of nuclear fuels to manufacturing of nuclear equipment, construction of nuclear power plants among others.
Komarov, first Deputy CEO of Rosatom

For a country like Nigeria, it means we can bring a lot to the table because our experience is now more than 70 years. We began our nuclear experience in Russia in 1945 just after the Second World War. In 2015, we celebrated our 70th year anniversary.

How does your history help us?

We can bring our experience not just strictly in the area of nuclear power, but to use nuclear in other areas such as nuclear medicine, radioactive technologies for agriculture, radioactive tech for different industrial solutions among others. One opportunity is the fact that there is a huge energy deficit in Nigeria; there are several figures to compare. Nigeria’s population is more than that of Russia.

We have 140 million people in Russia, Nigeria has about 180 million. We have about 220 Gigawatts of electricity in the national energy system, Nigeria has six Gigawatts. This means that Nigeria is suffering from lack of electricity.“Nigeria is very similar to Russia. We have many natural resources like coal, gas, among others, just as Nigeria does. But even at that, Russia is still investing in nuclear.

Why ?

Every country should have a special solution as to what sort of energy mix it wants to have. And it is very dangerous to have only one source of energy no matter how efficient it is. For example, we have a lot of coal and gas, but their prices have a high volatility. Sometimes they are very high, sometimes they are low. What we must take note of is the final cost of electricity, which is approximately 60 or 70 percent higher.

If the price of coal doubles, it means that the final cost of electricity will be 70 percent more; same for gas. However the cost of uranium, which is produced on a nuclear power plant, has just a three percent implication on the cost of electricity. Even if the cost of uranium goes up, you may not even feel the little impact it would have on electricity. That is very important for the people and for the industries. If you have predictable prices for electricity for the next sixty years, which is the minimum time to operate a modern nuclear power plant, it really helps to grow the economy.
In 2012, Nigeria signed an international agreement for the construction of the first nuclear power plant and Rosatom was chosen to do that. How far has it been?

You are correct. We are very proud of that and will do our best to achieve this goal. “What we decided to do was to create a special joint committee which is headed from the Russian side by me, and from the Nigerian side, by Dr. Franklin Erepamo Osaisai, Chairman, CEO of Nigeria Atomic Energy Commission. This joint coordination committee had several tasks.

The first was to implement this agreement with Nigeria about the construction of the first nuclear power plant. We have made some practical steps. We have prepared the project development agreement. It is a lot of work even before the project itself starts. We need to prepare good feasibility studies for banks and other investors