South Africa also built its own nuclear power plant. We are capable of doing advanced things, just like anyone else.

you were capable. now the nation has been looted and a shithole remains. internet comments aside in your heart of hearts you and everyone else knows im right.

A nation in that condition can overcome. And what else is worth doing?

The challenge I see isn't that they can't mine uranium and make HTR fuel, but more that there is not much of a market for it at the moment. But the concept is still under development

https://www.modernpowersystems.com/features/featurewhatever-...

and they have a dual reactor powerplant running in China

https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/China-s-demonstratio...

I am a little skeptical about the pebbles because of the problems they had in Germany

https://inis.iaea.org/search/search.aspx?orig_q=RN:39099096

which I'd summarize as "in the helium environment the pebbles experience friction that causes significant fuel damage" China and X-Energy seem to think they can solve it but it is also possible to develop prismatic fuel elements that won't slide past each other but will need disassembling the pile at refueling time.

It was built 1976 to 1984. Given the extensive emigration of educated people since, does SA still retain enough people locally to be able to accomplish similar feats?

> So this whole 'we are the best in Africa and need to help out our neighbours' take is kind of ironic.

I don't know if they are the best in Africa, but they are near the top. Which is a sad take on how bad the world has looted and still is looting Africa. Who is looting has changed over the years of course, but there are still major players both external and internal looting the countries to their own benefit.

Who is 'looting' Africa?

Wasn't Zuma involved in a ton of scandals and bribery (allegations(?))

Last I read up on South Africa, the ANC's extremely dominant position means there's pseudo-one-party rule, with all the usual downsides that entails. Politicians are not beholden to the electorate as much as to the party itself, because the party controls who's up for what election.

The US/UK political parties are also pretty nauseating sometimes, but they and the free(r) press are hyper-aggressive at keeping everyone honest (to the point they make mountains out of mole-hills/grains of sand)

There are many different countries and many different actors looting.

Iran, Russia, United Arab Emirates, China, France and the US are country level actors that I know of. I have no doubt there are more. Some of them try to keep the interests of Africa in mind, some are straight up looting (if you make money from a mine but use your profits to improve the area is that looting - this is a complex topic that depends on details)

Many countries are run by a dictator (often their top military general) who run the country for their own gain. Sometimes these dictators are natives who grew up as elite in the country, but none care about the people. Even where the country is a democracy, often the leaders are using corruption to ensure they win elections and then they run the country for their own gain not the people.

Note that I didn't put companies in the list. While there are companies involved, they are all hiding between a country in some way and if you reform the country they are powerless.

You should look into the south DRC situation, i think you're missing a few state actors, as well as private actors.

There are more than 80 countries in africa. I cannot follow them all. I have no doubt there are more.

The DRC is living a quasi-civil war for the last 25 years or so, following Rwanda's genocide. It did calm down in the 2000s, almost managed to stop but then smartphone happened, and they have open air mines of the stuff we use for touchscreens, and the mineral is used to pay for weapons and salaries. Jihadists tactics in the Sahel are inspired from the DRC civil war one (rape and genital mutilation as terror weapons, random executions).

Africa is being looted by its leaders who sell their country's resources for chicken change to foreign companies (instead of directing those resources to develop their homeland).

The kleptocrats in charge keep pointing at foreigners to distract the population from their corruption and incompetence, and many of the populace, unfortunately, buy into the crap they're fed...they still troop out to vote for the same corrupt thieves in charge.

P.S: I'm Nigerian.