Topic: Future of Nuclear Power
Country: South Africa
Delegate Name: Jasmine Walker
School: Royal Oak High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All South Africa position papers GLIMUN 2011 committees
The country of South Africa is very interested in learning more about nuclear power, and using it to our – as well as other countries’ – full advantage. We would like to see nuclear power used more, as a steady source of income, as our fossil fuels are being depleted. We are very much in favor of world-wide increase in the use of nuclear power.
Five percent of our energy is provided by nuclear generators, and we have two nuclear power plants currently built, though we would like to see both of these numbers increase. We currently do not have the funds to do so, but when that is more stable, we are very much in favor of using more nuclear power.
South Africa was heavily dependent on coal, and still has coal reserves, but we would like to move more toward nuclear power than coal as an energy source. We feel that it is safer for the environment and a more stable system than using fossil fuels, and we believe that more countries should use nuclear power.
However, we also would like to be very sure that those countries won’t use the power to make nuclear weapons – therefore, we would need to be sure that there would be conditions on the use of nuclear power. We would like to be sure that countries would not abuse it, and so we would have to be sure that there was agreement according to the NPT before we went ahead and did this. We understand that as much as nuclear power can help, it can also be used for other purposes, and that is not our goal at all.
We believe that the accident at Fukushima, while tragic, should not hinder countries’ use of nuclear power. This accident, and those like it, are not the norm but the exceptions, and we should not use them as examples of how nuclear power is terrible. If we learn from the accidents and make nuclear power safer to use, we feel that will be a good thing.
South Africa feels that we need to decrease our dependence on fossil fuels, and move to a more stable energy source that’s renewable. Nuclear energy, while it has been dangerous in the past, seems like the best route to go, and we strongly encourage more countries to use it as a primary source of energy.
