The east Africa region has the fastest growing population in Africa. Between 2013 and 2017, its growth rate was twice the African average. The region is also experiencing strong economic growth. It's sub-Saharan share of GDP has risen from 14% in 2000 to 21% in 2022.

Such growth translates to higher electricity demand. Among a variety of new energy proposals is building nuclear power plants. Earlier this year, Uganda announced plans to construct a 2,000MW nuclear plant 150km north of Kampala, with the first 1,000MW operational by 2031. Rwanda also recently signed up to a deal to build a nuclear reactor, while Kenya and Tanzania have made more or less similar announcements.

It is in many ways tempting for these countries to pursue a nuclear power plant build. Even a single large-scale nuclear reactor would typically double national electricity generation capacity. In addition, it is technology that is - in theory at least - able to provide a constant electricity output independent of weather, season or time of day. 

Another factor that motivates many potential entrants to nuclear power is that it has historically been perceived in many quarters as confirmation of high technological status and proof of national respectability. This is despite many of the world's technologically and economically strongest nations now having shut down their nuclear plants. Germany and Italy are examples.

But there are several risks of choosing the nuclear path. The biggest in my view is financial. The costs of constructing, maintaining and later decommissioning a nuclear plant make this one of the most expensive forms of electricity generation. The actual cost is invariably a lot higher than originally announced.

Along with that, the construction period is usually many years longer than declared at the start.

In addition, safety issues can never be discounted when dealing with nuclear energy, as the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan amply illustrated. 

The perilous path to nuclear

There are two arguments against new nuclear as currently considered by east African countries.

The first is financial. The construction cost of a new nuclear plant typically stands at about US$5 billion per 1,000MW. The cost of a 2,000MW build in Uganda would be of the order of that country's annual total tax revenue. As such, the project would rely on massive loans, which also come with considerable interest.

The second is the risk of complete political and economic dependence on the nuclear build sponsor country. France, South Korea and China are building a small number of nuclear plants outside their borders. China is now part of the Ugandan nuclear project.

But the country that has been by far most aggressive in promoting itself as an international nuclear plant developer is Russia. In 2019 it had already secured nuclear cooperation agreements with 18 African countries, with several more concluded more recently. 

To circumvent the prohibitive costs, Russian nuclear developers have offered to provide comparatively low interest financing where repayments only kick in several years after the start of construction, and continue for several decades thereafter. The drawback is that the country develops a strong long-term dependence on Russia to meet one of its most basic needs: electricity provision.

The situation has been made more risky by the uncertainty of Russia's full-scale war in Ukraine. The fallout from this war may well ruin and lead to the complete overhaul of the Russian state. This would result in the disruption and ultimate termination of projects already in progress, with the concurrent loss of all funding and resources invested up to that point.

East Africa's likely future energy mix

In view of the financial risk and high cost, and as global experience has shown that it typically requires ten or more years to set up a new nuclear plant from project approval to electricity production, east African countries should pursue alternatives for electricity production.

New medium-scale solar, wind and geothermal power-generating facilities would likely dominate the expansion of east African electricity generation capacity in the coming decade as they are cheap in comparison. Typical construction timescales are also much lower than nuclear or hydro megaprojects.

Take hydropower generation, which uses the natural flow of moving water to produce electricity. This source of power has been the most significant in east Africa for decades. Building more dams is both time consuming and at times controversial. Nevertheless, major projects using this technology are currently still being built. An example is the 2,115MW Julius Nyerere hydropower station in Tanzania.

Solar power - the conversion of energy from sunlight into electricity - has an extremely low footprint in the region at the moment. Yet it is now one of the cheapest forms of electricity generation. Most countries in the region have extensive areas suitable for harnessing this source.

While not enjoying the wind resources of the Earth's oceans and mid-latitudes, wind farms can be considered in places, and are already in operation, such as in Kenya's Lake Turkana region.

East Africa furthermore has the Rift Valley and its volcanic activity in places. This offers the opportunity for geothermal power, a technology that converts the intense underground heat associated with cracks in the Earth's crust to electricity. This is already the leading electricity generation mode in Kenya and could be developed elsewhere.

Given all these factors, investing in a large and expensive nuclear build with uncertain completion timeframes that may end up being way more expensive than projected is ultimately simply not worth it.

Hartmut Winkler, Professor of Physics, University of Johannesburg   By Hartmut Winkler, The Conversation

The Rwandan government has no plans to host migrants deported from the UK, regardless of changes made to the deal, claims the leader of an opposition party formed in exile.

“There is no intention or capacity in Rwanda to accommodate these people,” Etienne Mutabazi, secretary general of the Rwanda National Congress (RNC), told i. 

He also raised moral questions about the deal, claiming Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, had agreed to it to “fund his wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)”.

Rwanda denies it is involved in the conflict raging in the eastern DRC, but regional experts, surveillance and the UN increasingly say they have evidence of direct involvement of the country’s military, rather than just support for the rebel M23 group, which is fighting the Congolese government.

The DRC has twice referred the Rwandan army to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for human rights abuses and pillaging its resources in recent years. In 2022, United Nations experts found “direct intervention” by Rwandan forces and the EU urged Rwanda to “stop supporting″ M23 rebels in the DRC.

“They’re [the UK government] facilitating this war,” said Mr Mutabazi, questioning whether any British money would be used for “a few basic accommodations for virtual migrants that will never come”.

Rwanda has received an initial payment of £140m from the UK – a little more than its approximate £135m annual military budget – with the promise of more money to fund the accommodation and care of any deported individuals.

Britain plans to send thousands of asylum seekers to Rwanda to deter migrants from making the dangerous journey across the Channel from Europe in small boats.

Rwanda has said that currently it can only host 200 migrants from the UK in a pre-existing hotel.

“They both [the UK and Rwanda] know it’s illegitimate and a waste of taxpayers’ money,” Mr Mutabazi added, saying the deal reminds him of how companies would dump their “industrial waste in Africa, this is now how they’re treating human beings”.

Mr Kagame in January lamented being held accountable for refugees Rwanda hosts. “We cannot keep being host to refugees for which, later on, we are held accountable in some way, or even abused about,” he said of refugees from the neighbouring DRC.

The UK’s Supreme Court rejected the original Rwanda proposal primarily over concerns about the honouring of non-refoulement, the principle of not returning refugees to a country where they could come to harm. Mr Cleverly was in Rwanda to get assurances on this point and claims his modified deal will be sufficient to allay the concerns of the Supreme Court and come into force before the next general election.

The changes include a plan to establish a panel of judges from different countries with asylum expertise to adjudicate individual appeals. An independent committee will monitor Rwanda’s asylum system to enforce the treaty and ensure what happened to those sent by Israel does not occur again. 

After the Israel deal, an agreement was signed between Rwanda and Denmark for the transfer of asylum seekers to the African country, but it was not enacted as Denmark agreed to wait for an EU-wide deal. Negotiations with Germany and Austria have also taken place. Rwanda received money from the EU to take at-risk refugees from Libya in 2019.

In the years after the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the new regime led by Mr Kagame followed the Hutu extremists, who perpetrated the genocide, into the DRC. At the time, it said it had the right to use foreign aid for this effort. Twenty-five years later, Mr Mutabazi believes the regime’s approach to money from Western governments remains the same.

As a representative of the RNC, an organisation formed in exile by those who have fled Rwanda, Mr Mutabazi rejects the alleged “hypocrisy” of the deal.

“How many Rwandan refugees are outside of the country who would like to go back?” asks Mr Mutabazi, who says he would like to return to his country, which he left in 1994 when the genocide occurred and Mr Kagame came to power, before officially becoming President until 2000. 

Mr Matabuzi says he draws some comfort from the comparatively brief tenure of UK leaders and is confident interest in sending migrants to Rwanda will wane, claiming it was a pet project of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

He suggested that although Labour are yet to say they will abandon the plan, they may be less willing to pursue it when it inevitably falls apart.

Neither the UK or Rwandan government responded to i‘s request for comment. The I