“We need, if it is possible, to build a nuclear power station to produce electricity.” At the Russia-Africa summit in St Petersburg in July, Burkina Faso’s president of the transition Ibrahim Traoré was not short on arguments to make to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin for the atom as the key to meeting his country’s “crucial need for energy”, where the rate of access to electricity is 19%.

“Our position is quite strategic as we are at the heart of West Africa. Because of the energy deficit in the sub-region, if a private Russian company can set up here, it will be able to sell energy to the whole sub-region,” said Traoré, who has close ties with the Kremlin, and wants to see this project completed as soon as possible.

Less than three months later, Russia’s nuclear energy agency, Rosatom, signed an agreement with Ouagadougou during Russian Energy Week, an event held in Moscow in October 2023. Simon-Pierre Boussim, Burkina Faso’s minister of energy at the time, said he could foresee the construction of nuclear power stations by 2030.

The media latched onto the story, especially against the backdrop of the war of influence between Paris and Moscow. “Russia to build a nuclear power station in Burkina Faso” ran the headline in several French newspapers. “Burkina Faso will soon receive its nuclear power plant from Russia,” Wafrica TV reported.

Nuclear plant costs 80% of Burkina Faso’s GDP

The announcements drew a smile from one specialist in nuclear energy: “It’s all smoke and mirrors. The agreement, which is vague, to say the least, is mainly about nuclear cooperation in the fields of training, agriculture and medicine.”

Teva Meyer, a lecturer in geography and geopolitics, and a researcher in civil nuclear power, agrees: “At the moment, Burkina Faso is incapable of building a nuclear power station because of the country’s lack of electricity transmission infrastructure. Burkina’s electricity production capacity is four times less than that of a nuclear reactor.”

While a conventional nuclear reactor can deliver up to 1,650 megawatts (MW) of power, the total installed capacity of Burkina Faso’s generating fleet does not exceed 250MW. Added to this is the absence of regulatory authorities, a non-negotiable for any nuclear energy project.

“There is no administration, political body and workforce capable of managing a nuclear power plant. It’s a long way from being a reality,” says Meyer.

Even if these conditions have been met, there is another major obstacle: how will the country be able to finance a project of this scale? The nuclear reactor delivered by Rosatom to Bangladesh cost $12.65bn – or 80% of Burkina Faso’s 2020 GDP.

Russia covered almost the entire cost of nuclear power stations in Bangladesh and Egypt, via a loan covering 90% of construction costs. But this method is not without risk, according to Meyer. “The risk is the debt trap and the inability to repay.”

Power capacity: the first barrier to entry

The case of Burkina Faso illustrates the gap between grand announcements and a country’s capacity to translate them into concrete projects, and it is not an exception. In recent years, Rosatom has signed agreements with about 20 African countries, including Egypt, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Congo, Rwanda, Mali, Sudan, Uganda and Zambia.

“I understand that the objective of most of these types of agreements between nuclear organisations and African countries is to support the sharing and exchange of information, networking, capacity building and training,” Sama Bilbao y León, director general of the World Nuclear Association (WNA) tells The Africa Report.

Many people in Africa are still without electricity

In Africa – besides South Africa, which has a nuclear power plant in operation (Koeberg, built by France’s EDF) – only Egypt has made any significant progress with these deals. It is in the process of putting the finishing touches to its $30bn project, under which Rosatom built four reactors, financed by a $25bn Russian loan. However, the plant is not expected to be operational until 2030.

“There are other countries, such as Morocco, that have made progress on this issue by setting up regulatory authorities and training nuclear engineers,” says Emmanuelle Galichet, a lecturer and researcher in nuclear science and technology at France’s National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts.

What pioneering countries have in common is that they have sufficient installed electricity capacity to accommodate a nuclear power plant. According to several experts, to produce one gigawatt (GW) of nuclear energy, the grid needs to have 10GW of power. Only five African countries have more than 10GW of electricity capacity: South Africa, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco and Nigeria.

“The ratio between the size of the grid and the nuclear power plant seems right. This is partly why small modular reactors are attractive for smaller grids and can also be used to power industrial clusters,” says the WNA. However, investment in the transmission and distribution network remains unavoidable.

“Many people in Africa are still without electricity. An expansion of network capacity is necessary for the expected increase in electrification. Such an expansion, while avoiding the use of coal or other fossil fuels, will require nuclear power,” WNA adds.

Technical, logistical, economic feasibility uncertain

Galichet believes the use of small modular reactors (SMRs) would be the most feasible option for many countries on the continent. With an output of up to 300MW, this technology is lagging, despite some promising examples, notably in Russia and China. Conventional reactors have an output of 600-1,600MW.

“While anything is possible in the laboratory, the industrialisation of such a complex technology is often an insurmountable hurdle. The feasibility of SMRs remains uncertain,” says Frédéric Jeannin, a researcher in the Climate, Energy and Security programme of the Observatory on the Security of Energy Flows and Materials of the Institute for International and Strategic Relations.

And the cost is out of reach for many developing countries. “One billion euros for the tool alone is not for everyone. Because, in addition to the reactor, you have to provide for all the related infrastructure, research, training of engineers and so forth,” adds Galichet.

For example, Morocco “is paying attention to SMRs because of their many advantages, in particular their adaptability, which facilitates integration,” said Leila Benali, the country’s minister for energy transition and sustainable development, during the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Scientific Forum in September 2023.

In December 2022, Alexander Kinchtchak, director of the Near East and North Africa Department at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told The Africa Report: “The Russian side has completed the study phase before signing an intergovernmental agreement with Rabat. Now it’s the turn of our Moroccan partners to do the same, after which the document can be signed. Once the agreement comes into force, our two countries will develop their cooperation in this area in accordance with the needs and priorities of their national nuclear programmes.”

‘It can take up to 40 years to come into service’

Whether for conventional nuclear reactors or SMRs, “you need workers, technicians and engineers, and the workforce has to be local,” says Galichet.  “It takes decades to get proper training in the nuclear field before Rosatom comes up with its reactor.”

Sama Bilbao y León echoed this view, citing the examples of the installation of conventional reactors in Egypt, Bangladesh, Turkey and the UAE. “It takes between 10 and 15 years to establish a policy of connection to reactors. The UAE launched a nuclear power programme in 2009, and this year they connected the fourth unit at Barakah, enabling them to go from 0% to 25% of their electricity coming from nuclear power in 15 years.”

That’s assuming that African countries buy the latest generation of reactors, which Galichet believes is unlikely. “The idea for African countries is not to buy today’s reactors, but those of the fourth generation,” she says. Only China has succeeded in commissioning a fourth-generation nuclear power plant.

However, according to the French Atomic Energy Commission, these “reactors of the future” will not be ready for industrial deployment until 2040 or 2050. Not to mention the time needed to bring them into service in certain countries. “It will take up to 40 years from design to marketing,” says Galichet.