Working Toward a Nuclear-Powered Africa

Princy Mthombeni I really wish that Africans can start focusing on what we have here in Africa and our experiences and our successful stories that we can tell because our stories are told somewhere else, and we can be able to tell our stories even better.

Mary Carpenter This is Fissionary. A show exploring how nuclear powers your world. I'm Mary Carpenter.

Jordan Houghton And I'm Jordan Houghton. Let's jump in. Welcome back to Fissionary! This season, we're taking a global look at nuclear and exploring how different countries are approaching energy, innovation, and the future. Today, we are heading to Africa, where energy conversations are deeply tied to growth, opportunity, and everyday life. And I have to say, this episode, this conversation with our guest, Princy, today was truly a humbling one. Hearing about energy poverty, really had me, throughout the conversation, reflecting on the immense privilege that I have to turn on a shower with hot water and have a fridge that keeps food cold, and medicine cold, which is something that also came up. So, I really encourage you to go into this episode, not just with an open mind, but also with an open heart, because this is really an instance of where nuclear can change the lives of so many people. Just before we get into it, I want to mention, if you listened to our bonus episode, you may already know that South Africa is currently the only country on the continent operating a commercial nuclear power plant. Koeberg began generating electricity in 1984, supplying about five percent of the country's electricity, and it recently received a 20-year license extension. So, there's a great model for Africa already within Africa, and that's something we also talk about in this conversation, and let's just jump into it. Today's guest is Princess Mthombeni, an award-winning international communication specialist, founder of Africa4Nuclear, and lifelong nuclear technology advocate from South Africa. She is globally recognized for driving nuclear communication strategies that shape policy and public perception. So, I am really excited to get to speak with her today. Princy, welcome to Fissionary!

Princy Mthombeni Thank you so much, Jordan, I'm glad to be here.

Jordan Houghton We're really excited to chat. And before we dive into all the details about nuclear in Africa, I want to talk about you. Growing up in South Africa, what was your personal relationship with energy?

Princy Mthombeni As a child, I had no relationship with energy altogether because I was born in the village. We had no access to electricity until I was at least 14 years old. When I moved to the city now, that's when I experienced living in a house with electricity. But yeah, I had no relationship altogether.

Jordan Houghton What was the change like when you moved to the city and suddenly had more electricity and access to easier way of life? What was that like for you?

Princy Mthombeni You know, I always tell people who grew up, you know, having access to electricity, that it changes everything, how you think, you know, how you view life altogether. And I mean, even the way you do things, like the time, because if you have to cook when you have no access to electricity, you still have to start by, you know, lighting the fire, getting the wood. It's a long process that takes hours. But when you have electricity, you just switch the stove. And you put a pot and you cook. So, it saves a lot of time. So everything, like, the life changes, the way you think, the way view things, it changes just about everything about yourself.

Jordan Houghton So how did those early experiences shape the way you see energy issues today?

Princy Mthombeni You know, as a child, you accept whatever situation that you are within because you don't know anything else outside than things what you are exposed to. So, I grew up thinking that that's how everyone lives in the world. You start from not having access to electricity to having access to electricity, to understanding energy poverty because there's no concept of energy poverty or energy security when you don't have access to electricity when you are a child. But when you grow up and start understanding all these things and all these concepts, then you actually start wanting to do right by other people who are still facing the same situation that you faced many, many years ago, and you want to change for them, and you want them to reach a situation where they are also like you now and they are understanding these things.

Jordan Houghton We talk about this a lot on Fissionary, the idea that our US-centric audience, we take for granted that we have refrigerators that keep food cold and stoves we can just turn the dial. And I'm always so interested and love to highlight when people did not grow up with that and there are so many people still do not have access to reliable electricity. So many people still live like this around the world and even in the United States, which I think is surprising to a lot of our listeners. So, share with us a little bit more about how Africa4Nuclear got started.

Princy Mthombeni Okay, this is how it was started. Number one, how I joined the nuclear industry. I think that's the very important part, because I knew nothing about nuclear. I got a call from a recruiter, I was looking for a job. She called me to say I should go for an interview to this organization. It was almost 100 kilometers away, so I drove to Pretoria. Apparently I'm still 30 kilometers away from where I'm supposed to go. I arrived there, I was already exhausted, and I'm looking at this place that is in the middle of nowhere. It was an exhausting process, and I knew very well that it was not for me. I'm not coming back here. The following day, I get a call from the same recruiter. I knew what she wanted to say. She wanted to say I got a job, and I did not want that job! And the recruiter spent at least an hour convincing me why I should go there. I ended up agreeing, and that's how I got introduced to this nuclear industry. Then I get there, people are talking things that I don't understand in nuclear. But then that was a life-changing moment for me because now I started being in the space where they talk infrastructure, they talk development, they talked technology, they talk all these concepts that are very important for any country in order to thrive or to prosper. The rest is history. I started joining organizations such as Women in Nuclear South Africa, joined African Young Generation in Nuclear, which now got me exposed to a whole lot of stuff and environment altogether. I started traveling abroad. My first trip was Finland, I remember, I went to Finland in Olkiluoto. I remember after Olkiluoto, I was like, this is the life that I want! I want this life! Then I started advocating for nuclear in South Africa. Now I want more nuclear power plants in South Africa because we only have one, which I did not know we even have before I joined the nuclear industry. There's so many people in South Africa who still don't know we have a nuclear power plant. Now I joined the international community of nuclear advocates. I joined the Stand Up for Nuclear, with Mark, Paris and them. I realized then that, you know what, I also need to start something like that in South Africa, and that's how Africa4Nuclear was founded. It started as just few minute videos. I wanted to do three-minute videos and post on social media. But then again, it became something huge because before I realized I was everywhere in the world, we're speaking about nuclear in Africa.

Jordan Houghton You just got me, like, excited all over again about getting to work as a communicator in this industry, just you telling your story. The nuclear community is, like, really good at embracing new people who come into it. We want to get people in and we want to keep them and we want to have strong advocates in every corner of the globe. Okay. So, Africa is home to some of the fastest growing economies in the world and energy is at the center of what comes next. What does that kind of growth actually demand in terms of reliable power, and how does nuclear fit into that picture?

Princy Mthombeni For me, I always talk about a prosperous Africa. And a prosperous Africa for me is the one that has sustainable energy, is the one that has baseload technologies, the one that uses its mineral resources to develop. And mineral resources, I mean all of them. We do have coal in Africa, we have uranium in Africa. We have gas in Africa, in Mozambique, when you go there, you find gas. You also have renewables and—as well as hydro. We have, I mean, we have Inga Dam, you know about it in the DRC. So, for me, a prosperous Africa is the one that is able to harness all of these technologies and bring them to life so that they develop countries individually. But because I'm a nuclear advocate person, I always speak about the net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, which is a language that all of us, we should be speaking, but we should be speaking it correctly. Many of our global communities are speaking right now because when they speak about net-zero carbon emissions, especially in the concept of Africa, they only talking about renewable energy sources. For me, it's not going to work. It's just not gonna work if we are really talking about a sustainable or a prosperous Africa based on sustainable development, those technologies are not going to help us. We need baseload technologies, we need dispatchable power, because every country that has developed, they started the foundation correctly.[JR1]  They brought, they used dispatchable power sources in order for them to industrialize. That, for me, is an Africa that I am imagining, that has technology, different technologies, but also that is using its own mineral resources, including uranium. And not just using uranium, we need to find ways in which we can harness these technologies here at home and not send the raw material outside because that's where the problem starts. But also, Jordan, when I speak about issues I become very, I would say, radical because I want our sources, our mineral resources, to be harnessed here at home instead of sending raw materials. But then again, you find that the systems that we are currently using in Africa are systems that were handed over to us by those who colonized us. We still have not built systems that are speaking to our challenges as Africans. So, we are using systems that developed to take away mineral resources from our countries.

Jordan Houghton So, South Africa has been the continent's nuclear anchor for decades, but there is a lot of momentum happening all around Africa right now. Which countries are making the most deliberate moves toward nuclear, and what's driving them?

Princy Mthombeni Rwanda is making the fastest moves. Rwanda is going to have an SMR before all of us here in Africa! Because they have a president that is decisive. But also when you look at countries like Kenya, they do have a site that they have identified. They've also issued out, I believe, the request for proposals. I think they know how much the plant that they are looking for is going to cost them. And then you also have Ghana. Ghana is way in advance in terms of the milestones, the IAEA milestones. I would say in South Africa, obviously we already have nuclear power plant, but what is happening right now is that the integrated resource plan, the newly gazetted integrated resource plan, it has nuclear power capacity, 5,200 megawatt capacity. So, that is a step in the right direction. It shows that there is a political will. But then having nuclear in the policy means nothing when you don't have plans to implement that policy. But we are hopeful that finally government will be able to implement nuclear. And South Africa also signed the declaration to triple nuclear energy capacity, by the way. Finally, it has joined! So, we are also hopeful in that direction. But also, Egypt is going to have a nuclear power plant which is currently being constructed. And that power plant is going to be bigger than ours, I'm even jealous. You see many African countries really speaking the right language when it comes to nuclear. Presidents now are no longer afraid to go to the public and say, we want nuclear energy technologies. So, it's a trending topic right now.[JR2]  It's only our president that has not really said anything about nuclear! But other presidents, you heard the president of Rwanda when they attended the Paris event. He was very clear in what he wants. So, we want all African leaders to be like that, to speak up and say, this is what we want, because we take it for granted that we always say the West is imposing things on us. If leaders are not saying it out so that the West understands what is it that Africa wants, they will impose.

Jordan Houghton It's interesting you mentioned South Africa leadership not being as bullish as others are, but South Africa is the one country that has nuclear right now. Despite the leadership, are other countries in Africa, do they look to South Africa as a model for what nuclear can provide?

Princy Mthombeni Well, that's the problem on this continent is that other countries, they would be telling us about Chernobyl, Fukushima. No one talks about what happens in South Africa because we have a nuclear power plant that has operated since 1984. Safely so, by the way. At some point it was one of the best in the world. I really wish that Africans can start focusing on what we have here in Africa and our experiences and our successful stories that we can tell because our stories are told somewhere else and we can be able to tell our stories even better because we have Koeberg Nuclear Power Plant that has operated for 40 years, safely so, providing clean, sustainable electricity to South Africa, and it's one of the best, by the way, here in South Africa. I always say, give me something that gives you what Koeberg is giving you right now. They post that saying Koeberg has been, like, providing electricity non-stop 24/7 for three hundred and seventy something days. I took that post and said, give me something that has done this in South Africa. Not even these coal power plants that we have can do what Koeberg does.

Jordan Houghton I love the idea of look here at home. We have this here, we've been doing it well here, we can be our own model in a way, we don't have to look to the West or anywhere else, because, just look at South Africa for the last 40 plus years. You mentioned public perception and how people look at nuclear, so I'm curious, through Africa4Nuclear, you're doing a lot of public education work, especially with younger audiences. What do those conversations look like?

Princy Mthombeni The conversations in Africa, as I said, is that you have three types of people or groups. The one that doesn't know anything about nuclear, the one that knows about nuclear and have taken a decision not to be interested in it—which is a very small group—and then you have those groups that know about nuclear and have embraced it. And when you tell them what nuclear is going to solve, what is nuclear going to bring in Africa, they get excited. [JR3] So, we don't have many people who oppose nuclear in Africa, especially in South Africa. Yeah, I'm glad that young people are embracing nuclear as soon as you start explaining what is going to bring for them.

Jordan Houghton Is there anything you're hearing from students or younger generation there in Africa that gives you optimism about the future for nuclear?

Princy Mthombeni A lot, a lot. We usually do a lot of schools outreach where I work. They understand that when we speak energy, we are not speaking energy in terms of just a light bulb. Like us when we grew up, we thought a lightbulb is everything that we need. They know that you are talking development, you are talking infrastructure, and you are talking jobs, you are talking business opportunities. So, those are conversations that we are having with the young people today, don't look at energy as just a—electricity. Look at energy as a whole, you know, foundation of development, because that's the only way that our countries would be able to reach the prosperity that we want. And then also what I usually encourage young people is that don't listen to people who speak about climate change or even energy poverty from a policy perspective who have never experienced it. We can't be listening to people telling us what it's like to have less when we don't have it at all, when we've never experienced having more at all. So, we also need to think about how we start by having more before we can speak the language of, you know, reduce. When I listen to these leaders talk about just energy transition to say, you are speaking the wrong language. Transition means you are transitioning from something else. You can't transition from nothing, and then you call it just energy transition strategy. That's a wrong strategy! No country in Africa that has not electrified or developed their industries should be talking just energy transitioning, unfortunately, that's my perspective.

Jordan Houghton I feel like for our audience, we cannot emphasize that enough, the idea that people who have had no electricity, who have had no energy, there is no cutting back. There is no optimizing a grid where there hasn't been a grid. And to your point, it's about abundance and more energy or any energy at all. And I just—I think that is just so incredibly important for people to understand. We've talked to other people in other places around the globe who have a similar take on that, where they've come from energy poverty, and people come in and say, we have to be environmentally friendly, and they have no idea what it is like to live in the dark. The other thing I want to talk to you about, and this kind of fits into that, there's a broader conversation across Africa about charting its own energy future and making intentional choices about what technology is an investment, best support the continent's development goals and energy security goals, where does nuclear fit into that bigger picture?

Princy Mthombeni Now I would say, Jordan, I'm a nuclear advocate and I'm known for being a nuclear advocate, but also I understand that nuclear is not a solution for all African countries. And I'm saying that because not long ago, I mentioned to you that we have Inga Dam in the DRC, which the focus should be Inga Dam instead of nuclear for them. We have gas in Mozambique, which the focus should be gas first before they speak nuclear, you know. And then we also have many other countries that nuclear cannot be a solution or the only solution for them. But also, let me bring it back home. You look at South Africa, South Africa is a coal country. We have coal that will last us for the next 100 years, so that means we should not abandon coal. We should still use coal, but what we should do is to look in ways in which we can use coal responsibly and reduce emissions. Because the mistake that people make is saying that we have a coal problem in this world. This world, we don't have a coal problem, we have emissions problem, so we need to address the emissions problem. So, I cannot go in public and advocate for South Africa to stop using coal. That would be a disservice to this country's economy. But also, South Africa has uranium, which we can use to power our industries because we can build more nuclear power plants, can also have policies. Because there's a problem with these global policies, policies that say we can’t enrich it here at home, because there's no use in having uranium, sending it to Russia, sending it to wherever, and then it comes back as a fuel. Why can't we enrich it here at home and build industries here at home? So, that's what I'm advocating for. [JR4] Right now, the world is thinking net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Imagine countries like the U.S. who already have nuclear power plants, countries like France who already have power plants. They are not too affected by the net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, a plan or strategy, because they did not put all their eggs in one basket. So, to me, a successful grid in Africa is the one that does not put all of its eggs in one basket. If you gas, try and diversify your energy sector and have other sources that can help you so that you balance. We need a balanced energy mix. [JR5] 

Jordan Houghton So, related to that, in South Africa, you've had years of load shedding—which, for people who don't know, are planned rolling blackouts—that affected everyday life in a real way. So, I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about what that was like and how that impacts what you just said about the importance of energy diversification and a good mix.

Princy Mthombeni In South Africa, number one, for people who are listening, is that we always find nice words for these things that already have words in the world. I mean, we didn't need to have the word load shedding because it's power cuts. There's nothing fancy about it, it's just power cuts, it's electricity going off. So yes, when we say load shedding, it means that we don't have enough, so there's a huge gap between the demand and the supply. There's no balance. Imagine! For me, electricity is a basic right, I call it a basic right, but now we have to share because there's not enough. So, those load shedding, they come in stages. When we say stage one, it means we are at least one hour without electricity. When stage two, two hours like that. And then we ended up having stage eight of load shedding three years ago, but now they take it in separate hours. Maybe in the morning they take two hours from our area and then maybe later on they take another two hours, that's how they divide these hours. But we ended up having no electricity for eight hours in a day, which was a horrible experience because imagine knowing that I won't be able to watch my favorite TV show because there wasn't electricity! People or shops, people made a fortune out of selling gases, selling candles. We were back in these olden days where I was growing up. But also, what was said is that you find that small businesses, they were struggling because now, without access to electricity for eight hours, other places, they got shut down because they could no longer afford to sustain themselves. So, a lot of small businesses were affected then. But also, even big businesses, they were affected because now electricity became more expensive for them because they needed to have other options instead of relying on Eskom's electricity. So, they needed to install solar power, they needed buy generators. It was a sad moment for all of us—years, couple of years, let me not even say moment. It affected a whole lot of industries. But for me, I was sad for small businesses that had to shut down because of debt.

Jordan Houghton That's just, again, something that I feel like a lot of people don't think about because they don't have to and they're in a much more privileged energy situation. And that's just, I mean, you had me when you said you couldn't watch your TV shows, but then when you flip to the businesses, that's a whole other level! So, as African countries explore nuclear, do you feel like the continent is becoming a more active voice in the global energy conversation?

Princy Mthombeni Yes, certainly they are. They are becoming more active. As I mentioned earlier on, you listen to other presidents and they start talking loudly that, you know what, this is what we want. We want to develop our countries and we are going to do so using our energy or a balanced energy mix that includes nuclear. So, they are very loud in terms of what they want, but their loudness is not enough because what I want to see, Jordan, I want to hear when I switch on the news to say, concrete is being poured in Kenya. They are building a nuclear power plant. That's what I want to hear. So, I'm no longer interested in their active voices. I'm interested in how they act now. Let's see how they act.

Jordan Houghton Do you think the rest of the world fully recognizes what Africa brings to this conversation or is there still a perception gap?

Princy Mthombeni They do recognize, if you have a nuclear, you're a technology developer, who is your most possible client? Because many developed countries, they are speaking reducing access to electricity, so your most possible clients are in Africa because those are people that still need to start from scratch and develop their energy sectors. That's how I see it.

Jordan Houghton So, Africa4Nuclear isn't just about building power plants. It sounds to me like it's also about building a distinctly African case for nuclear. What does that mean to you?

Princy Mthombeni For me, Jordan, it means someone who lives in Uganda doesn't have to travel many, over 500 kilometers, to look for a CAT scan to get the diagnostic or a treatment for cancer. It means that—it means someone who lives in DRC, they don't have to struggle for water access. Someone who lives in countries where they have oceans, water doesn't have to be an issue for them because they can build desalination technologies so that they turn this seawater into drinking water. It doesn't necessarily have to—the nuclear solves many problems. I always say to people, nuclear is hated because it solves a lot of problems. When someone said to me that there's only one hospital that has nuclear medicine and the CAT scan in one of the African countries. Imagine how many, millions of people having to rely to this technology, this one hospital, which is a sad situation, so that's how Africa4Nuclear looks at nuclear, as holistically, to say, let's develop nuclear technologies, but not only for power or for electricity use, but also for medical purposes, also for agricultural purposes, as well as seawater desalination purposes. [JR6] 

Jordan Houghton So, related to that, one of my favorite previous Fissionary episodes was, we spoke on the Rhisotope Project, which was using nuclear in conservation. And I loved that as an application for nuclear in places where endangered animals are hunted.

Princy Mthombeni Imagine, we are now able to save animals as well! I love that project. I used to talk a lot about it. And it's here in South Africa, Vets University. Yes, I love it! And those who don't know what this Rhisotope Project is, they're going to put an isotope in the rhino so that it's like a tracker so that they'll be able to track the rhino because we know the situation about how rhino, or horns, getting poached. So, we are going to save animals as well now using nuclear, which is an amazing thing.

Jordan Houghton So, so fantastic. Okay, so you're looking 10, 20, 30 years out, what does success look like for you?

Princy Mthombeni Success for me looks like when no one has to go to the fountain 4 AM and get water, drinking water. No man that has to and get wood from wherever to come and light fire so that they can cook for children. It looks like Africa where everyone has access to electricity, and every child at school is learning using their tablets, and where Africa's mineral resources are now being used to benefit the people of Africa and to build industries where industries have been built on this continent, and everyone, you know, has jobs so that we are also able to solve so many things including this, people migrating from their countries to other countries. That's how a successful or a prosperous Africa looks like, where people—where you don't struggle to get a job. No one has to struggle because it should be a right. Right to work is something I strongly advocated—I advocate for to be put in the constitution. It needs to be a right because it protects their dignity. For me, that's the Africa that it looks like, where everyone's dignity is protected and where leadership fully understands what it means to grow their countries. Because most leaders that we have now, they do not understand what it means to grow a country economically. So, that's what it looks like, is that every child needs to understand what it means to be born in a house where there's electricity, where there is a television, there's a fridge, and where there are clinics nearby that have refrigerated medicine that people can use.

Jordan Houghton I think that's a perfect note to end it on, but I do have one more question for you, and it is the question we're asking all of our guests to wrap up our episodes this season. What is your favorite place you've traveled to and why?

Princy Mthombeni I do want to say Canada, because I got to spend six weeks there and I traveled to different parts of Canada. I went to Saskatoon, I went to many provinces of Canada, and it's such a beautiful country with beautiful people. Okay, and maybe because I went there when it was summertime.

Jordan Houghton I love that. Canada is beautiful. And you're right, it's a different experience in the summer than in the winter! Princy, is there anything exciting, events, anything like that coming up for you and Africa4Nuclear, and where can our audience keep up with you?

Princy Mthombeni We are planning this—we call it the Great Talk Energy Debate. So, we want to invite young people to debate, but we're gonna start it on social media for them to post videos debating about energy. We're gonna give them a topic to say, just post the video of two minutes and tell us, what do you think about this topic? For me, you can find me on social media, I'm on LinkedIn, I'm Princess Mthombeni, but I'm also on X, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.

Jordan Houghton I'm thrilled you were able to be on. You're definitely gonna have to come back at some point, Princy, because I could talk to you for several more hours.

Princy Mthombeni Thank you so much. I truly enjoyed this, thank you!

Jordan Houghton Thanks so much to Princy for taking time to talk to us today. Love the shout out to our friendly neighbors to the north in Canada. I do think she's right though that it would have been a different story if she'd visited in the winter. If you enjoyed today's episode, please follow us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen. And as always, a plug to leave us a rating or review because it can help others discover the show. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time on Fissionary.