After the Bell: US and Russia compete in new nuclear race to power African economies

The atom bomb that the US dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 had a little-known African connection.

About two-thirds of the uranium used in “Little Boy”, as the bomb was dubbed, was extracted from the Shinkolobwe mine in the Belgian Congo, now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Shinkolobwe was by far the richest uranium mine in the world at the time, and while Belgium was occupied by Nazi Germany the Congo was administered by the Belgian government in exile in London. 

Like everything else linked to the Manhattan Project, this was wrapped in a water-tight veil of secrecy, including the exploitation of Congolese workers who did the dirty and dangerous work of mining the uranium.

“The United States was determined to obtain all the uranium it needed from the Congo, and at the same time deny German attempts to secure any Congolese uranium,” Jean Marie Okwo-Bele, a nuclear physicist at MIT, wrote in an article for the faculty newsletter in 2021. 

In 1944, it emerged that some Belgian companies in the Congo had illicitly sold uranium to the Germans.

“Over 1,200 people were sentenced to death for such activities, 242 of whom were actually executed,” Bele writes.

This was America’s first nuclear-inspired race in Africa, and it would not be the last.

Today, the US and Russia are wooing African governments with the prospect of nuclear power to help light up the world’s least-electrified and industrialised continent. 

Rosatom, Russia’s state atomic energy company, is pointedly a “gold sponsor” for the Africa Energy Week conference in Cape Town next week — Monday, 4 November 2024 to Friday, 8 November. 

Russia is keen to boost its clout in Africa — for reasons that are frankly nefarious given the odious nature of Vladimir Putin’s regime — and nuclear power is one of the paths it is taking.

Rosatom is developing compact RITM-200 reactors for small nuclear power plants that can float on the sea or be erected on land, and Africa is a key target market.

The governments in Burkina Faso and Mali — both of which are revealingly military juntas — have signed declarations of intent with Rosatom to build nuclear plants, and the Russian company is currently building one in Egypt.

And of course South Africa is high on the Russian nuclear power radar screen.

Disgraced former president Jacob Zuma’s attempts to secure a deal with Russia a decade ago under the cloak of Manhattan Project-type secrecy melted down when National Treasury officials bravely drew a line in the sand over a transaction that was clearly radioactive for public finances and corrupt to the core. 

South Africa — the only country in Africa that currently has nuclear power via the French-built Koeberg station — is in the market for more nuclear capacity, but any deal with Russia would be regarded with suspicion and would strain relations in the Government of National Unity. 

But wait, there’s more

The Russians are not the only show in town. 

The US and Ghana in August signed a commercial agreement for a small modular reactor project in Ghana.

“The small modular reactor project is anticipated to be a cornerstone of Ghana’s efforts to enhance its energy infrastructure and lead the way on small modular reactor deployments in the region,” the US State Department said in a statement.

Nigeria and Kenya have also expressed interest in US technology.

The advantage of small modular reactor and related technologies is their scale. Big nuclear power plants can take decades to build and often face overruns in costs that are already prohibitive. 

Small modular reactors are far cheaper, faster to build, and easier to decommission. They have power capacity ranging from tens of megawatts to 300 MW, making them ideal for things such as mines.

“There is a real shift in the thinking about nuclear technology and power plants. There is a recognition that if you want to meet your energy security goals and your climate goals then nuclear has to be part of the equation,” Kimberly Harrington, Deputy Assistant Secretary in the US State Department’s Bureau of Energy Resources, told Daily Maverick in a recent interview. 

“If you have a mine, let’s say that is very energy-intensive, small modular reactor technology might work. For that you need reliable base load power,” she said on the sidelines of the AOW Investing in African Energy conference in Cape Town. 

Being nuclear, such deals go beyond the purely commercial. 

“Nuclear deals are decades and decades long. We tell all of our friends and allies to consider this because it is a government-to-government relationship because of the non-proliferation issue. It is not a purely commercial relationship,” Harrington said. 

Small modular reactor technology is still about five years away from commercialisation.

Russia already has one small floating nuclear power plant, with two reactors that each generate 35MW, to power the Arctic port town of Pevek. 

In this nuclear power plant catwalk, which contestant should African countries choose?

Well, the old Cold War — when both superpowers propped up rival regimes, often with no concern for stuff like human rights — is over. One of its episodes was the US-led overthrow of the democratically elected government of Patrice Lumumba and installation of the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1965, orchestrated in part to keep the Congo’s uranium out of Soviet hands.

Moscow the destabiliser

Moscow these days is the destabiliser with blood on its hands.  

The Russian mercenary Wagner Group, rebranded the “Africa Corps” — the Nazi version was the Afrika Korps — has committed well-documented atrocities including rape and mass murder in Mali, the Central African Republic, and elsewhere while looting gold, diamonds and timber.

By contrast, the nuclear power drive looks benign. But deals cooked up with the Russian government will be corrupt and come with unpleasant strings attached. 

It must be said on the energy front that US oil companies in recent decades have hardly covered themselves in glory, enabling autocratic kleptocracies such as Equatorial Guinea’s. And when it comes to corruption, let’s not forget about Western companies such as Glencore. 

Read more: Glencore to pay $1.1-billion fine after pleading guilty to graft and market manipulation.

But in the nuclear space the US simply comes across as more transparent and legitimate, and it has capital resources that sanctioned Russia does not have. The US Exim Bank, for example, can provide long-term financing for small modular reactor projects in Africa.

This is to facilitate overseas markets for US businesses, but there is nothing wrong with that. And Africa needs power, and small modular reactor technology is clean, efficient and relatively affordable. 

Like so much else, a lot of this will hinge on next week’s US presidential election, which remains a coin toss between Vice-President Kamala Harris and former president and convicted felon Donald Trump. The recent US initiatives have been products of the Biden administration, and given Trump’s affection for Putin, America’s nuclear power ambitions in Africa could get torched were he to win. 

Seven decades after exploited Congolese workers toiled in dangerous conditions to supply uranium for the Manhattan Project, it would be no bad thing if the mineral was used to light up African economies and development through nuclear power — but not via Russia. DM