I recently told a group of people at a pub (a pub, can you believe!) that I thought Donald Trump was a “good idea”.

There was the sort of silence that you get when the stage magician vanishes completely and then the sort of shouting that follows when Sandra Bullock asks who would like to go with her in a police car chase scene.

When the boos and cries died down, I pointed out that the last US election vote was for the Democrats and Barrack Obama. Now it is for Trump. And, unless a whole lot of 18-year-olds have swung the vote, it means that the US citizens did not care for the Democrats and now want the Republicans. It is not necessarily a vote for open season on deer hunting and licensed shooting of immigrants, I think. It is more for the US taking a more balanced approach to funding (oh, if you think Trump is an idiot, at least he went to high school and everything).

So, now we have our new Minister of Energy, David Mahlobo, a fully qualified microbiologist, who certainly does not know the difference between a megawatt and megavar, pushing to get the Integrated Resource Plan finalised so as to allow the inclusion of nuclear power in South Africa’s power generation development plans. The proposed nuclear plant will be constructed to supply 4 000 MW and will be upgradable to 9 000 MW.

A great number of people are unhappy about this. The unhappiest are those who do not know anything about power generation at all. They tell you that there are better alternatives, such as renewable energy, which can supply “most, if not all, of our electricity needs”. That there is nuclear waste storage required, which will have to be in place for many “thousands of years”. That nuclear accidents (Chernobyl and Fukushima) are “stark reminders of safety risks”. That it costs too much. That a new South African nuclear power station will increase the proliferation of nuclear arms.

Now listen: I am for Trump. I am for nuclear power.

Renewable energy? Hello? Hello? In the middle of a still night in Gauteng, what will be running the lights actually, hey? Not renewable energy. Thousand-year storage? I bet in 1900 nobody thought the cyanide-filled Johannesburg mine dumps would vanish. But they have. Somebody will crack the nuclear waste issue in far less than 1 000 years. Safety risk? There are 449 nuclear reactors operating right now and 60 new reactors under construction. About 4 500 people have died or will die as a result of Chernobyl. There are no radiation deaths associated with Fukushima.

Get some perspective: there were over 14 000 road deaths in South Africa in 2016 alone, and they are increasing.

A nuclear reactor in South Africa will increase the proliferation of nuclear arms? Seriously? You are joking, right?

There are elephants in the room, not least the ghost of Robert Oppenheimer, who, as project manager for the US nuclear bomb project, witnessed the first bomb detonation and recalled the word from Hindu scripture: “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” This was three weeks before the nuclear bombs flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These events are truly horrifying but not enough justification to burn Koeberg or the new nuclear station at the stake. The other elephant is that some corrupt politician will benefit from the new nuclear station. So what? Same happened at Mossgas 28 years ago.

But having another costal nuclear station is good, since it relieves the power transfer limit to the coast from inland, backs up all the coastal power supplies as far as Durban, will aid water desalination, will really lift the Cape economy, and can load-follow the variable renewable-energy wind generators. All good technical arguments. But who gets them?