allAfrica.com: Kenya: Plans to Establish Nuclear Power Plant Challenged

Kenya's dreams of establishing a nuclear power plant is facing its first hurdle after a man moved to court seeking to stop the government from going ahead with the project. Dr Josef Kipkemoi Kitur is opposing the plan to establish the nuclear plant by 2017 to become energy sufficient. He says the negative implications of having nuclear plant outweigh its positives and as a result the court should intervene and stop the process. Kitur's main concern is devastating effect nuclear energy will have on environment.

In his view energy ministry is going about the business of establish nuclear plant without fully acknowledging and appreciating the greater risks involved in the nuclear energy. He wondered why Kenya chose to go for nuclear energy when many international communities are campaigning against it and withdrawing from it due to its negative environmental degradation.

Kitur says that the principle of sustainable development requires that economic and social development can be sustainable only if environment is protected from degradation. He notes that the fissile material and sources of ionizing radiation poses health, safety and environmental risks for very long time. "It is thus difficult to determine measures are necessary in order to protect generations adequately in the very remote and unpredictable future which Kenya as a developing country cannot cope and sustain," he says.