Nuclear plan will keep SA’s poor in the dark – Kumi Naidoo – Video

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Nuclear plan will keep SA’s poor in the dark – Kumi Naidoo – Video

7:40 CAT | 23 May 2016

Fin 24 (File photo) / Former Greenpeace director Kumi Naidoo

Former Greenpeace director Kumi Naidoo said millions of South Africans living without electricity cannot wait 10-15 years for the nuclear procurement plan to roll out enough electricity to bring them onto the grid.

Speaking at the Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute (Safcei) fundraising breakfast on Monday, the anti-apartheid activist said “one in four South Africans don’t have access to electricity”.

“We can host the 2010 Soccer World Cup and build a Nkandla, but we have not been able” to bring electricity to all South Africans, he said.

“Our economy needs energy now; we cannot wait for 10 to 15 years,” he said, predicting the time it would take to build a nuclear power plant.

Global Carbon Exchange (GCX) founder Kevin James added in his speech that renewable energy projects in South Africa were being completed in 18 months.

“Nuclear is too expensive and too dangerous,” said Naidoo. “The country will deliver too little, too late.”

“Investing any more time, energy (and) resources in this nuclear misadventure, which will not I believe ever take off, … means that we are losing time,” he said.