☢️🇪🇹America offers Ethiopia a nuclear manual. Russia offers a nuclear future
Ethiopia wants its first nuclear power plant operating within the next decade and has brought American and Russian regulators into the programme. The two countries, however, are offering very different things.
❓Why does Ethiopia need nuclear power?
About 90% of Ethiopia’s installed generating capacity comes from hydropower. Drought has already pushed its dams below their stated output.
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has greatly expanded Ethiopia’s generating capacity, but it has also deepened the country’s conflict with Egypt. 🇪🇬Cairo fears that Ethiopian control over the Blue Nile could restrict downstream flows during a prolonged drought. 🇪🇹Addis Ababa rejects this.
Nuclear power would diversify the grid and reduce Ethiopia’s dependence on rainfall and hydropower. It could also create an entirely new industrial sector for the country.
🇷🇺 Rosatom is already building Ethiopia’s possible future in Egypt
Rosatom is constructing Egypt’s first nuclear power plant at El Dabaa: four VVER-1200 reactors with 4.8 GW of combined capacity. All four units are under construction. El Dabaa will be Africa’s first new nuclear station since South Africa’s Koeberg was completed nearly 40 years ago.
The International Atomic Energy Agency describes Rosatom's turnkey package: Russia is providing credit for 85% of the construction cost. Rosatom is responsible for design, construction and commissioning, long-term fuel supply, spent-fuel storage, personnel training and maintenance support. Around 55% of contracts and subcontracts are localised. More than 18,000 Egyptians work at the site.
First fuel is expected in 2027 and grid connections from 2028. Ethiopian officials do not have to imagine what the Russian model looks like. It is being built next door.
🔎 What Russia is offering Ethiopia
Rosatom’s strategic roadmap, signed on 31 March, covers two 1,200 MW reactors, feasibility studies, site selection, technology transfer and workforce development.
A feasibility study is already being prepared for a Russian-backed Nuclear Science and Technology Centre. Ethiopian students have also been offered scholarships to study nuclear engineering in Russia.
A country entering nuclear power needs engineers, operators, regulators, universities and local suppliers years before the first reactor starts. Rosatom includes those capabilities in the project. It can also supply the fuel needed to keep the station operating for decades.
🇺🇸 The American project does not exist
Washington has announced no reactor, construction loan, fuel contract, training programme or localisation plan - only the rules for licensing, inspections and nuclear safety.
Keeping the Americans involved still makes commercial sense. Addis Ababa can use their presence to demand a lower price, better financing, more Ethiopian contracts and deeper technology transfer from Moscow.
But there are no two projects competing for Ethiopia. There is a Russian project and an American manual.
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