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| Fig. 1: Map of Nigeria. (Source: Wikimedia Commons) |
Nigeria, which is located in West Africa (see Fig. 1), has the largest natural gas reserves in Africa. It was one of the largest exporters of liquefied natural gas in the world in 2018. [1] Nigeria is also the largest oil producer in Africa. [1] This means that the Nigerian economy is heavily dependent on its crude oil and natural gas resources. [1] However, this also means that its economy can be affected greatly by fluctuations in the price of crude oil. [1]
Despite being one of the largest producers and exporters of crude oil in the world, Nigeria has a large energy crisis. [2] Nigeria had an electricity generation capacity of 12,644 MW in 2017, but it only had a net electricity generation of 28% of this, 3,495 MW in 2017. [1] The power sector in Nigeria is affected by poor maintenance of facilities, and a poor transmission and distribution network. [1] As a result, there is a large shortage in the supply of electricity in Nigeria. Close to 50% of Nigerians don't have access to electricity from the grid. [1] This means that Nigeria needs to invest in their energy sector and explore different ways to produce more energy and distribute this energy.
Nigeria does not currently have a nuclear power plant. However, due to its need for investment in the energy sector to meet demand, it has expressed interest in developing nuclear power plants for electricity generation and desalination of water. [3] These goals are ambitious but difficult to attain. Russia has signed Memoranda of Understanding with a number of African countries, including Nigeria. But no work has actually begun on building these nuclear power plants. [4]
Nigeria has ambitious goals of developing nuclear power plants for electricity generation and desalination of water. [3] The electricity infrastructure in Nigeria definitely needs investments, but rather than invest in nuclear power plants, it may be more important for the government to first invest in better infrastructure to increase its net electricity generation to meet its obligations and to distribute this energy to more people.
© Ammaar Adam. The author warrants that the work is the author's own and that Stanford University provided no input other than typesetting and referencing guidelines. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.
[1] "Country Analysis Executive Summary: Nigeria," U.S. Energy Information Administration, 25 Jun 20.
[2] "Annual Report 2019," Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, 2020.
[3] "Uranium 2016: Resources, Production and Demand," Nuclear Energy Agency, NEA No. 7301, 2016.
[2] T. Bolodeoku, "Nuclear Energy in Nigeria," Physics 241, Stanford University, Winter 2021.
