Nigeria to build nuclear power plants to meet energy needs by 2015

Nigeria plans to build nuclear power plants to meet a major part of the West African country’s electricity demand by 2015, a government minister said Wednesday.

A meeting of the Cabinet chaired by President Olusegun Obasanjo set a target for the country to generate 40,000 megawatts of electricity within the next decade, with a significant part coming from nuclear energy, Information Minister Frank Nweke told reporters in the capital, Abuja.
Nigeria is Africa’s leading oil and gas producer and the world’s eight-biggest oil exporter, but remains a low electricity generator and consumer. The country runs on less than half of national capacity of 6,000 megawatts of electricity, with power cuts frequent and the electricity infrastructure run down by years of corruption and mismanagement.

Nweke said Nigeria cannot rely on its natural gas, coal and hydroelectric resources alone to meet its energy requirements and wants nuclear power to supplement them.

International Herald Tribune