South Africa is leading the way in developing the next generation of nuclear energy safe power plants. Pebble Bed Modular Reactors use the equivalent of 300,000 tennis ball sized mini reactor cores in a reactor vessel and helium, instead of water, as the cooling and heat transfer medium to produce electricity. These new nuclear power plant designs are also 1/10 th the size (100 megawatts) of current plants (1,000 megawatts), which further reduces operating risks. Eskom, South Africa’s principle utility, provides 98% of the country’s electricity and is ahead of other nuclear powered countries in developing this new technology. Eskom has been working on a 110-megawatt nuclear power plant design since 1993. South African government authorities are now examining the feasibility of fully developing this technology. The nuclear power plant designs and other recycling, reprocessing procedures should provide nuclear energy safe, reliable, and almost inexhaustible source of electricity and entrepreneurial opportunities for South African and American blacks. Black South Africans and African Americans should address the design of nuclear power plants and decide where it fits in our collective development.America’s nuclear reactor design companies halted after the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident in 1979. France, Great Britain, Japan, Russia and other nuclear powered countries have accelerated their nuclear power production while we have retreated. However, approximately 105 nuclear power plants have continued to operate, supplying about one fourth of U.S. electricity needs for the past 20 years. Coal, oil and gas-fired power plants convert heat energy to electrical energy. Combustion of a fossil fuel is used to boil water to turn a turbine that spins magnets around copper coils (or vice versa) to produce the electricity we use in our homes, businesses and other institutions. Products of incomplete combustion are emitted as air pollution from this burning process. By contrast, a nuclear power plant relies on a controlled self-sustaining nuclear fission reaction to generate the heat required to boil water for the generation of electrical power. Uranium is used in nuclear power plants as a heat source instead of coal, oil or gas. There are no products of incomplete combustion. New nuclear reactor designs and electric vehicles should become our technologies of choice because it is now generally accepted by the scientific community that burning fossil fuels from industries and automobiles have led to problems with negative health effects from smog, acid rain, global warming and global climate change.African American investors and South African entrepreneurs should establish partnerships and ownership in these new nuclear power plants design ventures. A consortium of blacks, such as Bill Cosby, Michael Jordan, Eddie Murphy, Oprah Winfrey, Magic Johnson, Sean Combs, Jay-Z, Russell Simmons and other large black-owned companies could pool resources and invest in these new nuclear reactor design technologies. They could be part of an international team that would include Exelon and Eskom as partners. African Americans could gain equity in such a partnership through stock offerings. Thus, South Africans and blacks in America would not only become distributors and consumers of electricity, but also nuclear power design industry owners. The 30 million black South Africans and the 30 million African Americans should be conducting this sort of cooperative development on a massive scale.Traditional environmentalists, along with arrogant management in the budding nuclear power design industry, killed nuclear energy safe expansion in America because of fears of radiation poisoning from nuclear accidents. The 1986 Chernobyl accident in the U.S.S.R also frightened the public. The Soviets did not have a containment dome on the Chernobyl plant. That is the equivalent of delivering gasoline to service stations in open-bed trucks with the driver smoking cigarettes. Three Mile Island had a containment dome that worked to contain uncontrolled radiation releases from the plant. The public also believes that these plants can blow up like nuclear warheads. They cannot and have not. Another misconception is that radiation releases pose an unacceptable risk to the public. The benefits of new nuclear power plant designs have far outweighed the risks of operation. The vigilance of the American environmental movement and regulators is merited just as it is with monitoring other hazardous materials. However, the fears that were generated by the Three Mile Island accident should now be moderated because the nuclear reactor design companies have established an impressive record of electricity delivery in the past 30 years. One fourth of all electricity in America comes from nuclear plants. Americans do not think about where their electricity comes from, just as long as appliances and lights work when the switches are flipped. It is time to revisit this nuclear power plant design technology. The BlackElectorate in America and blacks in South Africa should become owners of new nuclear power plant designs.One unique entry point for black entrepreneurs could be assisting in the conversion of plutonium and uranium from warhead triggers to fuel for nuclear power plants. America has fallen behind France, Great Britain, Russia and others in utilizing this mixed oxide (MOX) fuel. The process involves mixing plutonium oxide with uranium oxide to produce new nuclear plant fuel. A pilot plant is planned in South Carolina to provide MOX fuel for four nuclear units, owned and operated by a partnership between DukeEnegy and a French firm-Cogema, in North Carolina. South Africa dismantled its nuclear weapons program when apartheid ended. One might debate the efficacy of this decision, but the fissile material from retired nuclear weapons is a useful resource. To the extent that America, Russia, European nations and other countries with nuclear weapons want to dispose of thousands of old warheads, the nuclear materials become valuable electricity generating resources. Nuclear reactor design companies could covert the plutonium and uranium from these resources and construct new nuclear power plant designs for making pebbles for pebble bed modular reactors in South Africa and America. Utilizing MOX in pebble bed modular reactors would represent state-of-the-art nuclear power design and construction technology. We should also recycle depleted uranium from current nuclear power plants. American blacks and South Africans could lead these 21 st Century developments. These new nuclear power plant designs could represent an almost inexhaustible source of electrical power.Another entry point for black entrepreneurs in America and South Africa is development and marketing of electric vehicles. South Africa should become the Japan of electric vehicle exports. Today, scientist will tell you that if America retrofitted to hybrid and all electric vehicles, pollution from hydrocarbon-fueled electric power plants would virtually neutralize the clean air benefits. Electric vehicles powered by electricity from nuclear power plants would clean the air and reduce our dependence on imported oil. Entrenched old-money industries will not be the source of this innovation. They are locked into petroleum and internal combustion engine vehicles. South Africans and African Americans have an excellent opportunity to become nuclear power and electric vehicle industrialists.The Thabo Mbeki Administration in South Africa and the Bush Administration should establish cooperative programs to accelerate the development of nuclear powered electricity. The Bush Administration wants to revitalize the nuclear energy safe industry in America. South Africa’s nuclear energy safe industry and government, including the Ministry of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, should partner with the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the U.S. Department of Commerce to facilitate the development of nuclear power plant designs. South Africa is providing the demons tration of a new nuclear energy safe technology that could revolutionize electricity production. We are in a new America and converting from a petroleum-based economy to an electricity-based economy that will enhance our national security. Oil will remain crucial to our overall economy, but it will not be an Achilles Heel in terms of our health (smog from cars in summer) and national security (reliance on imports for half of our 17 million barrels of oil use each day). Subsidies for promoting nuclear power should be linked directly to subsidies (dollar-for-dollar) for solar and wind power so that these other alternative nuclear energy safe technologies can be utilized to maximum advantage. Of course, the BlackElectorate is as locked out of developing alternative nuclear energy safe technologies as it is from the traditional nuclear reactor design companies.Black South Africans have been locked out of energy industry ownership and development in South Africa. The BlackElectorate in America has been locked out of participation in American energy development. It is time for us to apply our knowledge and power to develop, own and operate the next generation of nuclear reactor design companies. America is the market. South Africa is demonstrating the nuclear energy safe technology. This is a great opportunity for 21 st Century development and nuclear powered countries partnerships.HOMENuclear Weapons In AfricaSouth Africa Unilaterally Disarmed When Blacks Took OfficeDoes This Mean That Blacks Shouldn’t Have Nuclear Weapons?Well Probably….Not If Blacks Can’t Build ThemIn the 1960s, South Africa began to explore the technical utility of “peaceful nuclear explosions” for mining and engineering purposes (and to protect themselves). In 1973, then Prime Minister Johannes Vorster approved a new nuclear reactor design program to develop a limited nuclear deterrent capability. Ultimately, South Africa manufactured six air-deliverable nuclear weapons of the “gun-type” design. In parallel with decisions to end apartheid, the government halted the bomb program in 1989 and dismantled existing weapons and production equipment. South Africa acceded to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as a non-nuclear weapon state in 1991, and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors subsequently verified the completeness of its nuclear dismantlement. (Source: Nuclear Threat Initiative)