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{
    "id": 502856,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/502856/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 443,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. J.K. Chege",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2129,
        "legal_name": "John Kiragu Chege",
        "slug": "john-kiragu-chege"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, let me be on record that I rise to oppose this Motion. I feel that with all due respect to the Mover, the hon. Member is ill informed of the technology that is behind the nuclear power production on matters of safety. For this reason, I believe as far as this country is concerned and in this continent, Africa, there are some people somewhere who believe that an African has not come of age to take care of nuclear technology. We saw it in South Africa when the country became independent. There are some who said that they must shut out their nuclear facility. However, we know that there is none among all the developed countries around the world that has developed without use of nuclear technology. You can mention South Korea, South Africa which is a country here in Africa or even the United States of America (USA). Even countries such as Germany and Sweden had to initially go for nuclear energy and they took their economies to the levels that we know. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, we know that energy is important and particularly for us to achieve our Vision 2030. The rate at which we can develop power in this country may not be feasible if we do not explore all the avenues of power generation. We started this country with hydro power and we struggled with it for sometime before we realised that we were not getting anywhere. We then moved to thermal power where we use fuel to generate power. It became expensive, unreliable and it was not giving us what we wanted to have. We are now in geo-thermal and it is a good technology which we are exploring. We also know that the rate of generation also depends on how quickly you can survey for the wealth, drill and collect the steam. It is not an easy thing. We are talking of 5,000 megawatts in the next few years but we are not sure that we can achieve this. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, there is wind energy also. Now everybody is saying we have wind in Turkana, Kinangop and even in my place which is Limuru. However, even the countries like the Netherlands which have wind power also have other sources of power like nuclear. We know that this country has solar as a major source of energy but solar technology is still expensive. What I am saying is that it is wrong for anybody to even propose that Kenya can stop thinking about nuclear technology. We know nuclear technology has two fronts; the military and the other which is civil. Kenya has chosen the civil application which means that we can go for nuclear power generation as well as explore its applications in medical or industrial fields. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for those who do not know this country has been on the path of civil application of nuclear technology for quite some time. We have the centre of nuclear technology here in the University of Nairobi (UON). I personally had the first training of International Atomic Energy in matters of testing using nuclear technology. For anybody to say that we cannot handle a nuclear facility, it is like those who said that we cannot even fly the Dreamliner yet we have seen that we can do it. Anybody The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}