The Director of Nuclear Power Institute, Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (NPI-GAEC) Prof. Seth K. Debrah has reiterated the need for a Green Baseload Solution in Ghana.
This, according to him, has become needful due to the exhaustion of all major hydro resources in the country.
He noted that the failure of the country to adopt a green solution as a replacement for electricity production would put the country in trouble.
“We have three major hydropower plants in Ghana, the VRA, Kpong, and Bui power plants but these are big power plants. The rest of the potentials we have in terms of hydro are very small hydros, 100 mega watts, 50 mega watts, 20 mega watts and these could possibly come up but they are not major.
…So these are some of the things we talked about and said we have exhausted our hydro sources for power,” he explained to this reporter on the sidelines of the workshop.
He continued that Akosombo Dam which has served the country for 60 years has its water levels dropping and the country is in serious need for a replacement.
Prof. Debrah was speaking at a three-day workshop for news editors of the Ghana News Agency and some selected News Editors including AmaGhana Online.
The workshop which was under theme “Nuclear Safety, and Environmental concerns; strengthening public understanding,” was aimed at promoting and sustaining media involvement in the information and education on the need for Ghana to adopt a Green Energy Solution.
Encouraging the media personnel to propagate the benefits of Nuclear Power, Prof Debrah noted that in addition to the need for zero-emission technologies in the country, setting up a Nuclear Plant would even change the economic fortunes of the citizenry.
According to him about 4,000 people could be on-site at a time in addition to some other direct and indirect jobs.
The representative of the Minister of Energy at the workshop, Dr. Robert Sogbadji listing government’s input into the roadmap for getting Ghana’s Nuclear Power system started noted that ‘all the conventions that were ratified with government’s representation and representatives from the Nuclear Regulatory Authority are all part of Government’s efforts to show commitment to the Nuclear Power Program.’
He announced that based on the encouraging support from the International Atomic Energy Agency, a number of countries have expressed interest to assist Ghana in its Nuclear Energy journey.
“Notably among them are China, South Korea, Russia, France, USA, India and recently the United Kingdom and Canada.” Dr. Sogbadji stressed.
