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| A nuclear energy plant |
By Peter Kofi
Amponsah
Nothing in
contemporary Ghanaian political history is more pathetic than the amazing lack
of patriotism and naked display of disloyalty to the country of one’s birth by
certain sections of the educated elite in our society. This unfortunate
observation is even understated because those, whose disappointing conduct
invited it, were highly respectable people who cannot be said to be unaware of
what they were about, and the true implication of their actions.
A tangible case of a
despicable conspiracy which resulted in a major disaster for the country and
its people, the full implication of which is yet to be realized was their
participation in a most disgraceful exercise which decided the fate of the
Ghana Atomic Energy Project after the 1966 coup.
As it always happens
in such cases, the things that in stormy periods remain concealed from public
view become visible. Today we have the possibility to clearly, see the close
interconnection between the internal and external factors of development of
nations, and the extent to which the external factors sometimes become key
catalysts of the internal processes.
A feeling of
frustration at the reluctance of many respectable personalities in our society
whom I consider better competent to take steps that are urgently needed in the
supreme interests of our country has
forced me to take up my pen on this very serious issue over which a highly
ridiculous silence has remained unbroken for many years now.
This is because on
this issue enough facts are now known for the appropriate steps to be taken
immediately, but those whose duty it is to present these facts in their proper
forms to governments, for reasons still to be discovered, pretend to be
completely unaware of them and therefore prefer to let such a vital issue continue
to be decided by emotion and unreasoning prejudice.
This is one of the
major problems that continue to agitate the minds of our people today. What is
more distressing is the fact that at that particular point in our history, the
preconditions for a spectacular breakthrough had been firmly created and it
would be difficult for any patriotic citizen in the correct picture of events
not to be overwhelmed by the extent of the catastrophe.
I am quite sure there are a number of scientists who may
justifiably be frustrated by what can be described as government’s ambiguous
attitude towards the whole Atomic Energy Programme.
The puppet NLC
administration itself realizing the indignation of the people, tried to
camouflage that disgraceful sell-out by an incredible machination tantamount to
national suicide. What is more, all the explanations offered for this
objectionable action had collapsed completely under the bombardment of new
facts. What is now known to have actually taken place was a most insidious
conspiracy against the country and its people hatched by highly qualified
brains.
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| Sir John Cockcroft |
Sir John Cockcroft, a
British nuclear engineer who was brought down to Ghana under very dubious
circumstances to investigate the viability or otherwise of the Ghana Atomic
Energy Project, had by his recommendations openly and shamelessly demonstrated
his regrettable lack of respect for the right of the African people to acquire
modern scientific knowledge and technology, and this would have been enough to
condemn him as a total disgrace to the world scientific community, were it not for the obvious fact that he came down from the United Kingdom
with a clear political instruction to bury the Ghana Atomic Energy Project.
From all indication,
his presence in Ghana as a nuclear scientist was only to mislead the world
public opinion, by giving the impression that the decision to close down the
project was taken only after a thorough assessment by a most technically
competent authority in that field of knowledge. The reasons he gave for that
act were so ridiculous that one finds it very hard to believe that a man of his
scientific standing could do a thing like that.
For the purpose of a
fair intellectual debate, it has become necessary to make available to the
reader, the four main points contained in the recommendations taken from a
certified copy of the report kept by the National Archives of Ghana. The
following therefore are the main points:
“The scientific
research and applications to which the reactor could usefully be put, if
completed, can all be carried out by purchasing radioactive isotopes and
equipment at only a fraction of the cost of building and operation the
reactor”.
The number of
scientists who could be required to operate a reactor and laboratories would be
about one-third of the total number of physicists and chemists in Ghana today”.
“In view of the capacity of the Volta Hydroelectric project, for some twenty
years to come, a reactor is unlikely to be necessary for the purpose of
producing power. A research reactor is not therefore required for technological
development of nuclear power”.
Taking account of the
present state of scientific and technological development potentialities of
Ghana, the scarcity of high level scientific manpower, and the need for more
financial support for research in agriculture, health, and other fields contributing directly to the economic
development of Ghana, I consider that the scientific and technological case for
proceeding with the reactor project is extremely weak at least for the next ten
to twenty years”.
This is a big insult
to the intelligence of the good people of Ghana, which ought to have been
exposed long time ago by scholars and opinion leader of this country as
fraudulent and inimical to our country’s interests. This precisely was what we
had expected our senior colleagues of the pen to do in 1967.
As we all know, no
branch of science and technology can influence the industrial might of a
country to any extent until it has well developed industrial base. For example,
in spite of its incomparable merits and advantages, atomic energy would have
remained a laboratory miracle for a long time if its development and progress
had not been put on a powerful technical and industrial basis not only in the industries directly linked
with it, but also in many other ones.
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| Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah |
Almost all the older
branches of science and technology are occupied to some degree or another with
atomic problems (chemistry, metallurgy medicine, biology and so on). In fact,
experts now agree that it is almost easier to count the fields that have not
been enriched by the advances of nuclear physics than to make those where they
have already found wide application.
In recent years, the
world has witnessed an impressive demonstration of the global significance of
nuclear physical research and its profound influence on technological progress.
Nuclear physics has served as the starting point of many radical changes that
have taken place as a result of harnessing nuclear energy in many fields.
It is an industry
that employs and trains great many highly qualified people of the most varied
of professions. The 25MW capacity reactor to be installed at Kwabenya before
the 1966 coup was purely a research reactor and not for immediate generation of
electricity. It was to help in creating and accelerating the country’s
scientific and technological capacity to enable it tackle problems of any
degree of complexity. It was also to
provide the necessary technological base for building and operating nuclear
power reactors. To say therefore that we should not have our own reactor, but
purchase the radioactive isotopes and equipment from the United Kingdom was to
say the least an insult to our country and its people.
The second point was
equally groundless and could not hold even drop of water, especially when he
was clearly aware of the fact that the whole package contained a programme for
the training of the required Ghanaian scientific manpower of the project by the
Soviet Government. After the technical
aid agreement for the building of the Nuclear Research Centre was signed at the
end of the 1950s, a radioactive fallout station was built in Ghana with Soviet
assistance and was put in service in April 1965. This station was maned by
Ghanaian scientists trained in the USSR.
Another example was
the Volta River Project at Akosombo. When the construction of the dam began;
Ghana had no engineering and technical manpower to man such a project. But a
number of Ghanaians were quickly sent abroad to train for that purpose, and
when in 1970, the then Prime Minister Dr. Busia visited the dam, he expressed
surprise according to Ghana Radio, about the fact that he did not see a single Whiteman there, and that all the
engineers and technicians operating these gigantic installations were
Ghanaians.
In a message he left
behind in the Visitor’s Book at the Power House, Dr.Busia said: “It us most
impressive and heartening to see the large and complicated machinery here being
completely run by Ghanaian engineers and technicians”. If any evidence is
required that we can master contemporary technology, surely, it is
incontrovertibly, given here. WE TOO CAN DO IT “. See Daily Graphic of 7th
October 1970, Front page.
This coming from Dr.
Busia in particular is very significant in view of his opposition to the accelerated
scientific and technological development programme of Dr. Kwame
Nkrumah, and who was also said to have opposed the construction of the
very dam he visited. Dr. Busia was also the chairman of the political committee
of the NLC, the very government which was responsible for the present
scientific and technological backwardness of the country. But from this
statement, it is clear that Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia began to see things in a
different light when he became the prime Minister of Ghana.
While we believe that
the activities of the social scientists connected with what happened could have
been a result of their ignorance mistaken for knowledge, we are unable to
accept that this explanation applies also to the natural scientists and engineers, and are therefore inclined to
believe in their criminal liability. This is because by the nature of the training of scientists
and engineers, gaps of these magnitudes can simply not exist in their
understanding of such vital issues as the strategic importance of nuclear
technology for the economic survival of any country, irrespective of whether
they are citizens of an underdeveloped country, or of a developed country.
On the third point, I
can express surprise that a man of Sir Cockcroft’s scientific standing could
make such recommendations without any thought of its effect on his own
reputation and prestige. Sir John Cockcroft became famous when he and the Irish
physicist, Ernest Walton, reported in 1932 an experiment consisted in using
protons accelerated in accelerating tube to an energy of the order of 0.125Me
V, in a narrow beam to bombard a target made in Lithium -7. I read about it in
a scientific journal in 1970.
Take for example, at
the time of this so –called report, Valco was taking Two-third of the electric
power generated by the dam. And with the construction of the second dam at
Kpong which has brought the combined capacity of the two dams to 1100MW, Valco
alone is now taking about 50% of the entire power generated. 9% is supplied to
Togo and Benin, leaving 41% to the rest of the country.
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| The Akosombo Dam |
What this means is
that proper industrial development of this country has been frozen for the past
quarter of the century. This is because this so-called report sought to prevent
and has actually prevented the possibility of installing any industrial plant
with the power rating of that Valco in Ghana from 1967 to date. It has to date,
effectively frustrated the establishment of major key industries such as iron
and steel, and other strategic energy intensive industries in Ghana.
According to a paper
prepared by Dr. R.P. Baffour, a copy of which is in my possession, it became
known in 1977 that the V.R.A. would not be able to supply only 130MW of power
required by the Integrated Iron and Steel Project at Opon Manse in the Western
Region, and even with the construction of the second dam at Kpong, the
situation would still not change much. This is a spectacular proof of the
economic inimicality of this so-called report to the country and its people.
The forth point has
actually reinforced the suspicion many people have to the effect that the
Western industrialized nations use all sorts of crude methods to try to fool
the developing countries into believing that scientific research is a waste of
money and that those countries engaged in advanced scientific research have
excess money for which they have very little use, and not out of economic and
technological necessity. It was clearly meant to prevent scientific and
technological development of this country.
The USA for example
has been facing major trade deficits for years, and yet it has drawn up a most
ambitious space programme which was announced recently, and has even purchased
a completely new generation of advanced nuclear reactor from the former Soviet
Union for this purpose.
This is not regarded
as a wasteful expenditure because those in the correct picture of world events
know very well that many branches of technology would never have achieved their
present spectacular successes without the help of space research. From the
above explanation, it is no longer difficult to understand the motive by which
Sir Cockcroft’s whole mission to Ghana from the United Kingdom was guided.
Many reasons have
been given for the coup of 1966 which overthrew the government Dr. Kwame
Nkrumah, except the real reasons which have been hidden from the light of day
for many years. What has now come to light out of many reasons which include
Washington’s ambition to establish its domination in Africa, the Ghana Atomic
Energy Project was the most immediate cause of the coup.
The whole tragedy may
have been caused by fear of Kwame Nkrumah’s intention to develop nuclear
weapons. As a prominent scholar once put it: “The greatest enemy of trust is
fear, and it makes no difference whether that fear is baseless or
well-founded”. THE Western countries regarded the Ghana Atomic Energy Project
as an intolerable challenge which must not be allowed to materialize, and since
they had no other way of stopping the project while Nkrumah was still in the saddle
of power, because of the fact that the technology for its realization was
Soviet, over which they had no control, they had no alternative, but at act as
they did, and to act immediately.
Ghana was the first
of modern Africa’s new states and Kwame Nkrumah the leader to whom all Africans
looked with new hope. The enormity of his political influence on the whole
continent of Africa, and the depth of
thinking behind his strategic development programmes were already viewed with
alarm by the west, and his attempt to lay hands on nuclear technology was the
last drop that caused the western world’s cup of patience to overflow.
Unfortunately, there
has been a deeply misguided belief that Kwame Nkrumah was too far ahead of his
time. This statement is usually meant not to vindicate him by those who make
them and to now admit their own unacceptable lag behind events in the world on
account of which we have suffered this tragedy, but to give the impression that
Kwame Nkrumah’s ideas were not applicable at the time of their statement,
because the people were not educated enough to understand him, but that they
could become operational only at a future stage of civilization.
The fallacy of this
statement becomes immediately clear when we have a look at the calibre of people
who were the brains behind the opposition of Kwame Nkrumah and his strategic
development programmes which aroused the indignation of the Western
industrialized countries for reasons which should now be very clear to our
people.
A prominent
philosopher once said: unlike other living
beings, man lives not only in the present, but also in the future, or
perhaps we should more appropriately say, not so much in the present as in the
future. This is why individuals and a whole civilization can be judges by their
conception of the future.
The present
technological might of the USA and the other powerful industrial nations is a
direct result of the heavy investment in advanced scientific research in the
past. To achieve economic self-reliance, it is necessary to resolve three
interconnected problems: to develop a modern industrial system, to create a
national scientific potential, and to train specialists. And all these were
among the top priority items in the Nkrumah’s strategic development programme before his overthrow in 1966.
A considerable amount
of information is needed to give the Ghanaian public a better perspective and
better factual basis for forming its attitude to the development of nuclear
technology in the country. This statement must not be interpreted to mean a
confirmation of the idea of Kwame Nkrumah being too far ahead of his time. An
idea, the employment of which seems to provide a refuge for traitors and puppet
intellectuals who have betrayed their own people to evade the possibility of being
called upon to account for their conduct. What I really mean is the need to
explain and refute the false propaganda.
The former Soviet
Union was the first country in the world to develop peaceful use of nuclear
energy when in June 1954, the world’s first nuclear power station was put in
operation in Obninsk near Moscow, where a nuclear reactor was installed instead
of a conventional steam boiler. Thermal energy was thus obtained by fissioning
uranium 235 nuclei in an atomic pile to convert the resultant energy into
electricity, like at conventional power stations.
Some 15-20 years ago,
there was no other country in the world with stronger antinuclear sentiment
than Japan, which is natural since Japan had experienced the horror of the
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But today, the commonsense has prevailed, and nuclear
power engineering is boosting in Japan. The Fukushima nuclear power station
which has 10 unit of 9 million KW, is among the largest in the would.
By 1989, there were
429 nuclear power stations in operation in 26 countries around the world. The
following is the breakdown of the countries involved.
1.
USA = 108 10. S. KOREA = 8
19. HUNGARY = 4
2.
USSR =
56 11.
CZECHOSLOVAKIA = 8 20. ITALY = 2
3.
FRANCE =
55 12. BELGIUM = 7 21. ARGENTINA =
2
4.
BRITAIN =
40 13. TAIWAN =
6 22.NETHERLANDS
= 2
5.
JAPAN = 38 14. INDIA = 6 23. S. AFRICA =
2
6.
GERMANY = 23 15. SWITZERLAND =
5 24. BRAZIL = 1
7.
CANADA = 18 16. GDR = 5 25. PAKISTAN =
1
8.
SWEDEN = 12 17. BULGARIA = 5
26. YOGOSLAVIA = 1
9.
SPAIN = 10 18. FINLAND = 4
There were also by
1989, 105 under construction around the world out of which the USSR alone had
26.The people’s Republic of China, on 15th December 1991 began
operation of her own design of nuclear power station.
According to the
International Atomic Energy Agency, these nuclear power stations represented
15.5% of the total power supply in the world at that time. Nuclear energy form
a higher percentage of the energy supply in France 67% and Belgium 69%. Britain
which has almost the same geographical size as Ghana and which according to our
records was responsible for the close down of Ghana’s nuclear programme after
the 1966 coup now has 40 nuclear powere stations which form nearly twenty
percent of her energy supply.
The only realistic
alternative to nuclear engineering in the coming 50-100 years is coal. But
electricity generated by nuclear power station built in the 1990’s will
continue to cost 30 – 50% less than energy produced by coal burning power
supply.
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| Ghana President John Mahama, an avowed Nkrumaist |
According to the
report, if nuclear engineering is slowed down, many countries including the USA
would be unable to retain their present–day living standards. Therefore, if the
living standard in developed industrialized countries require new energy sources
, why should any country try to prevent a country like Ghana from developing
its own?
Another report by top
nuclear scientists say that advances in nuclear engineering weaken competition
over organic raw materials, promote a stable world economy and in the final
analysis strengthen international security. This is because, if more
electricity is to be generated by using only conventional sources, the
likelihood of international conflicts involving fuel and raw materials would
grow. This explains why nuclear engineering in this sense plays a stabilizing
role in the world.
According to current
estimates, 200 - 250 million tons of ash about
60 million tons of sulphur dioxide are discharged every year into the
atmosphere as a result of the combustion of coal, oil and natural gas, and the
year 2000 these figures could rise to 1.5 thousand million and 400 million
tons, respectively.
Besides large amounts
of nitrogen and carbon oxides, free radicals and other health – hazardous
admixtures, including radioactive elements, enter the atmosphere. Again,
discharge from thermal power plants contains radioactive components, whose
concentrations are not as high and therefore are still safe. With increase in
the mass of burnt fuel, the radioactive discharge into the atmosphere from
thermal power plants grow. But scientific study has shown that the radiation
dose from a normally operating nuclear power station (1 million k W) is at
least 1,0000 times lower than that from the natural radiation background.
Today, the developing
countries’ advance along the road of developed nations necessarily requires
generating and consuming many more power than now. Up to now, the energy
infrastructure in this country is far from satisfactory. Experts say that how
the developing countries’ power industries will develop is crucial for their
economic and social progress.
The energy question
is one important problem facing every country which wants to develop, including
the most technologically advanced countries on Earth. Both the USA and the
former Soviet Union for example, have colossal sources of electric power and
yet the development of new sources of energy still remains important part of
their strategic development programmes.
It is a well known
fact that efficiency of industry depends primarily on its supply of electricity
per worker. Electrification paved the way to further social, economic,
scientific and technological progress. It prepared the soil for automation.
One of Kwame
Nkrumah’s preoccupations was the electrification of the whole country, for, he
said:”Without abundant electric power, large scale industrialization such as we
envisaged was impossible.” Electric power supply is a decisive factor in the
development of any modern economy. It is one of the principal indices of economic
development of a country and reflects the total state of its productive forces.
Without power supply it will be impossible to transform the enormous natural
resources of the country by modern technology for worldwide distribution.
Since the overthrow of
the first republic in 1966, electricity supply to the rural areas has been used
for cheap political campaign to the extent that impression has now been created
that supply of electricity to the rural areas constitute a kind of generosity
of government for which the people of the given area must express their
gratitude in the form of political support for the party or government.
It is sad that the
electrification programme so vital for the country’s industrial development
should be badly misunderstood and
thereby misused that way. We need to recognize the impossibility of tackling
the problem of underdevelopment which is the most dangerous threat to the
stability of every government without electrification of the whole country.
Electricity supply therefore, is not a Christmas gift from government, but an
indispensable prerequisite for national development.
Under this
electrification programme, it was clearly understood that modern economic
development programme based on the latest scientific and technological
achievements requires very high electric power station reliability, because
interruption in power supply not only affects the industries it serves, but
also impairs the efficiency of the stations itself.
To solve this
problem, these separate stations were to be integrated into power systems to
ensure continued supply and reduce the generating capacity reserve per unit.
Integration of separate systems represents a higher stage in scientific and
technological development of power engineering.
Because this
integration would ensure rational distribution of loads, and the switching of
surplus capacity into free channels which makes it possible at any moment to
resist the elemental force of electric flooding.
Electrical and
electronic technology has become major fields of study since the seventh decade
of the twentieth century. In electricity and electronics, man has found the
energy and tools of the future. We are however aware that already today, the
advance in these technologies are breathtaking and yet much more remains to be
discovered, analyzed and investigated by future generations.
A prominent physicist
once stated that: “In spite of its omnipresence, in spite of the fact that for
over half a century electricity has become more and more pressed into the
industrial service of mankind, it remains
precisely that form of motion the nature of which is still enveloped in
the greatest obscurity.
A brief explanation
of this statement is that no scientist knows yet the exact nature of the
electric charge carried by the electrons and protons. But we do know that these
charges are of opposite character and give rise to invisible forces acting in
the space around each particle. It is through the action of these invisible
electric forces that we can detect the presence of an electric charge.
In a bid to solve
their energy problems, the most technologically advanced countries are now
establishing a factory whose raw materials will be brought from the moon. Under
the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency, USA, the CIS, Japan and
the Euratom – the atomic association of the European Economic Community, are conducting
a joint research to build a thermonuclear reactor.
The group adopted the
Russian Tokamak thermonuclear reactor. At first, they were vied with by the
American Stellarators, but after they they were put to test, the group
including the US scientists adopted the Tokamak.
It is believed that
the operational safety and the absence of long-lived radioactive wastes in the
fuel cycle are some of the main advantages of thermonuclear energy. A
thermonuclear power plant will have no long-lived isotopes apart from tritium,
which in principle can be replaced with non radioactive Helium-3. This also is
incredibly rare on our planet, but scientists are not worried because of their
awareness of the fact that even the most hopeless problems collapse if attacked
by the entire world scientific community.
According to reports
scientists have now discovered that a vast of this material is contained in
lunar dust, and plans are advanced to deliver it from the moon. And
calculations have already shown that journeys for the raw material would be
quite profitable.
The main reason for
boosting energy production is the direct link between living standards and per
capita power supply. The generally recognized per capita energy consumption
norm is 10 KW, and this has been reached in only few industrially advanced
countries.
In Ghana, the
combined electricity generating capacity of the two hydroelectric power
stations is 1100 MW. If we take the present population as 15 million, then our
energy consumption per capita is 0.073 KW. In mathematical terms, we are about
137 times below the above-mentioned level. This demonstrates the basic fallacy
in the assertion by many Ghanaians including some in high positions that Ghana
has abundant source of electrical energy.
If we want to maintain
our presently obsolete scientific and technological base of our country’s
economy, then that is another matter, otherwise it is clearly inadequate. What
I want to put across is that we are terribly behind time, but we seem to be
quite happy with the pace at which we are moving, and this is extremely
dangerous for our country.
The gravity of our
present plights have put before us a clear choice which was unclear before –
either we make a running jump, or accept the cost of its alternative.
Commenting on the
whole situation, Kwame Nkrumah writes: “The coup d’etat on its surface was a
military revolt against me and what I stood for. If it is analysed more deeply,
however, it is a mark of the breakdown of the western attempt to influence and
control Africa. The western countries having failed to control democratically
supported African governments, were
forced into the final extremity of substituting regimes which depended upon no
other mandate than the weapons which they held in their hands. Such puppet government
cannot survive for long either in Ghana or elsewhere in Africa. The prosperity
of the Western world at the moment depends upon exploiting less developed
countries.
Each year the western
world pays less for its imports and each year charge more for its exports.
Those who make our “coups “believe, however, or at least pretend to believe,
that if they copy, or claim to copy, the outward image of the Western world,
then – in some miraculous way – they will secure the advantages which the
Western world enjoys. The contrary is the case. The individuals who have made
the counter-revolutions from Saigon to Sierra Leone are dependent for their
political existence upon western support. The countries over which they
temporarily obtain control are therefore exploited the more viciously.” See
Days In Ghana. Page 72.
The people of this
country are getting to realize very rapidly that the accelerated scientific and
technological development programme started by Kwame Nkrumah will ultimately be
a decisive factor in overcoming the
critical situation that hold back the progress of this land of their birth.
A great scholar
observed that:”The true significance of historical events and of the
contributions made by prominent personalities to the development of
civilization are fully revealed only in the course of time. With the passage of
years they do not fade away, on the contrary, they appear before us in their
genuine dimensions, giving us increasingly greater grounds to appreciate their
impact on the directions and rates of social progress. It becomes ever more
apparent that without the activities of these personalities, the subsequent
historical progress would have taken a much different trajectory.”
Great piece. I loved every bit of it.
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