Necessary consultations are underway for an Atomic power project in Nigeria, which is expected to take off by 2020. This was made known by President Goodluck Jonathan at Olorunshogo in Ogun State, a project laid out to fit in the government’s power-sufficiency agenda for the country.
He said the government will be very conscious of dangers of the atomic power project and thus will commit Nigerian Atomic Energy Commission to monitoring the project’s operations when completed.
“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,” President Jonathan stated.
According to the Chairman and Chief Executive of the Nigerian Atomic Energy Commission (NAEC), Erepamo Osaisai, Nigeria will require US$550bn in order to supply electric power adequately in the next 30 years.
He has said detailed feasibility studies will be carried out on the two sites identified for the nuclear power project. The country is running seven research centres for research on use of nuclear energy in various sectors.
