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{
    "id": 400826,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/400826/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 126,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "production by half. Instead of producing 700 megawatts, we end up producing about 300 megawatts. When that happens, Kenya is forced to import very expensive diesel power and emergency power at very great cost to the economy of this country. Since that has ripple effects in pushing up electricity costs, we decided to diversify our energy mix by looking at all possible sources of electricity in this country. We travelled round the world; we have been to France, Sweden and other places like Korea to see what those countries have gone through. It is for that reason that we decided to explore and increase geothermal production, increasing our hydro production and introducing wind energy and coal and fire and plants and also nuclear power projects. As I said, a hungry man cannot choose what kind of food to eat. He eats whatever is available. You can give him githeri, lamb, beef, ugali and whatever else is available. We need electricity from all sources. Europe would be in darkness, were it not for the power plants that such countries like Sweden and France are now using. Unfortunately, Germany had to close up because of a very powerful green Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) which acquired political power and forced the closure of nuclear projects in that country. The reason why Africa is still in darkness is because of the fear we have. When we talk about nuclear electricity, Kenyans start thinking about the Hiroshima bombs and the debates in Iran. They do not associate nuclear power with electricity. They associate it with war. I would like to state, on the Floor of the Senate today, that nuclear energy has very many good uses, not only for electricity but other scientific uses like medicine. I had occasion to visit Korea another time although not with the Committee because I had been there before. The most powerful Minister in Korea is called the Minister for Knowledge Economy. That is the Minister who is in charge of education, technology and, indeed, commerce and industry. That is all under one Ministry. The biggest export that South Korea has is technology. They export knowledge and technology and their biggest market is the United States of America. So, although it is not endowed with so many natural resources, they are able to make and sell knowledge and technology even to countries like the United States of America. Therefore, it is a very good model for us to look at as a country. In South Korea, we found that they have huge coal fired power plants producing some 3, 000 megawatts which is double what this is country is producing from one power plant. They do not have any coal, but they import it from Australia and use it to generate electricity in South Korea. Daewoo has about eight independent nuclear power plants in South Korea. They have demystified the nuclear technology and Daewoo was willing to come and set up a nuclear power plant in this country. The greatest fear about a nuclear power plant is what you do with the nuclear waste. Mr. Speaker, Sir, when I was in the Ministry, there was a stream of ambassadors from the West when we went to the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC) and announced that we had allocated Kshs300 million to start a nuclear power project under the Ministry of Energy. I got a lot of ambassadors who came to ask me if I really knew what I was doing; that Kenya has no capacity to handle nuclear waste which is potentially dangerous. They started offering 20 megawatt wind power plants. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate"
}