Engineering News | Columnist | Kelvin Kemm

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Kelvin Kemm

Dr Kemm is a nuclear physicist and is the CEO of Nuclear Africa (Pty) Ltd.

Kemm is the chairperson of the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation. He sits on the Board of Advisers of the Committee for A Constructive Tomorrow, based in Washington DC.

He is also a Board Member of GoNuclear Inc, and EFN: USA both based in Colorado, USA.

Exec@nuclearafrica.co.za

High-powered speakers lined up for Nuclear Africa

By: Kelvin Kemm 17th February 2017 South Africa’s nuclear programme has attracted a great deal of public interest. This has ranged from serious scientific and engineering interest to the emotional attacks of the extreme antinuclear lobby. The antinuclear crowd does not comprise South Africa only; there are Germans, Americans and... →

Leave the science of climate change to scientists

By: Kelvin Kemm 10th February 2017 I saw on television that Prince Charles has just brought out a booklet on climate change, designed to teach people about the issue. The book is written by him and two academics, supposedly. No doubt, that means that the other two wrote it and he put his name on the top of the author list. →

Thumbs up for Eskom’s plan to cut off errant municipalities

By: Kelvin Kemm 3rd February 2017 The price of electricity is a most fundamental factor in the development of an economy. Electricity can be compared to the blood flowing around a person’s body. If you run low on blood supply, you can pass out. A substantial cut in a blood vessel can lead to significant bleeding, and, if it is... →

Hollywood, TV promoting ‘crazy’ science

By: Kelvin Kemm 27th January 2017 Something that irritates me is when there is crazy, impossible science in Hollywood movies. It happens a lot. It happens on TV all the time. What I am talking about is things like when some fellow in a modern war movie picks up an infrared viewer and then looks clean through a concrete wall and... →

New coins to mark Krugerrands’ golden jubilee

By: Kelvin Kemm 20th January 2017 This year, a new pure-silver Krugerrand will be issued to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the first gold Krugerrands being issued in 1967. From 1967 to 1970, the Krugerrands were produced mainly for collectors, but they became so popular that, in 1970, the South African Mint started... →

The importance of reading comprehension

By: Kelvin Kemm 16th December 2016 When I was at school, during English language classes, we used to have an activity called ‘reading study’. We also had the same activity in Afrikaans classes, and it was called begripstoets, The term begripstoets translates as ‘comprehension test,’ which is a much better term than ‘reading... →

Nuclear power is the way to go

By: Kelvin Kemm 9th December 2016 If one decides to build a new hospital, one would expect that medical doctors and nurses would have a major say in how the hospital should be laid out. Architects would be involved. But local church groups, the baker and butcher should not be involved. Representatives of the church could make... →

Thinking outside the box not as easy as it may seem

By: Kelvin Kemm 2nd December 2016 Something that I have done for many years is to carry out strategic planning sessions for companies. These sometimes last a couple of hours, but at other times they last for three days. Even three days usually turns out not to be enough. →

The bigger picture is lost on prosecutions head

By: Kelvin Kemm 25th November 2016 One often hears the comment ‘seeing the bigger picture.’ In fact, it is repeated so often that at times I become really tired of hearing it. One other thing that puts that phrase lower down on my popularity list is the fact that so many people who use it do not actually have the capability of... →

Sadly, the Hawks following in the Scorpions’ footsteps

By: Kelvin Kemm 18th November 2016 The police unit that is popularly the Hawks continues to embarrass itself in public and, for that matter, internationally. I have written about the Hawks more than once before. When the unit was established, I wrote a congratulatory column and I said that I hoped that the unit would be different... →

‘Outsider’ input critical for technical people’s work

By: Kelvin Kemm 11th November 2016 When I was a postgraduate physics student, it was customary for all physics graduate students to have tea breaks with the staff. When I became a new honours student, after getting my first degree, the head of the physics department called the new honours students together for a bit of a pep talk,... →

There’s more to education than being in class

By: Kelvin Kemm 4th November 2016 The topic of education has been in the news a lot lately. Everybody has been talking about it, but most people are making the fundamental mistake of not asking the question: What is education? There is a related question, and it is: Why does anybody want to get an education? Let us ponder the... →

As we pray for rain, let’s plan for possible flooding

28th October 2016 Municipalities around the country are introducing water-use restrictions, increasing such restrictions or contemplating introducing them where none are in place. As the drought continues, there is so little water around that trees are now chasing dogs. In farming towns, cattle are eating traffic... →

Mere tweaks are all that’s needed to update energy plan

By: Kelvin Kemm 21st October 2016 There has been a bit of comment in the media about the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) of the Department of Energy. The plan is currently used as the planning base is the 2010 IRP. Comment now is that the plan needs updating. That, of course, is quite correct. Any plan needs updates from time to... →

A law will never curb abuse of alcohol

By: Kelvin Kemm 14th October 2016 Proposals to raise the legal age for drinking alcohol from 18 to 21 are being discussed publicly. My opinion is that this should not be done; the legal age should stay at 18. →

No amount of Cites resolutions will stamp out poaching

By: Kelvin Kemm 7th October 2016 People from 180 countries arrived in Johannesburg for the seventeenth World Wildlife Conference, also called COP 17. It is a conference of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or Cites. The ‘Cites’ actually comes from the organisation's French... →

Race to Mars not too far off

By: Kelvin Kemm 30th September 2016 The Chinese space lab, Tiangong-1, is on an orbital path that will cause it to crash into the earth’s atmosphere as a fiery ball sometime near the end of 2017. It was launched in September 2011 and the name Tiangong means ‘Heavenly Palace’ in Mandarin. The craft is about 10 m long and was... →

Many arguments are similar to like charges that will never meet

By: Kelvin Kemm 23rd September 2016 In elementary nuclear physics textbooks, there is almost always a simple diagram of two like charges being fired at each other. So, one will see two positively charged protons moving towards each other on a collision course. But, as they get close, they skid past each other without touching. The... →

Nuclear-powered desalination a possible solution to SA’s water woes

By: Kelvin Kemm 16th September 2016 People in the area falling under the Kouga municipality are becoming worried that the drought is continuing. This area is in the Eastern Cape and stretches inland from around Jeffrey’s Bay, St Francis Bay and Oyster Bay. It is a rich agricultural area and the prime dairy producing area of the... →

Proposed sugar tax leaves sour taste in the mouth

By: Kelvin Kemm 9th September 2016 I have, once again, been reading about the proposed sugar tax, which government says wants to introduce next year. The whole idea of a sugar tax leaves a sour taste in my mouth. The tax is proposed to be levied on sugared beverages. →

The army must be in charge of new border control unit

By: Kelvin Kemm 2nd September 2016 I read that there is something of a battle going on between the South African Police Service (SAPS), the National Treasury the Department of Home Affairs over who gains control of the proposed border control entity. This new entity has been under consideration for some time. It is expected that... →

The pseudoscience concerning selfies

By: Kelvin Kemm 26th August 2016 It continues to amaze me how much utter rubbish people can speak about science. Also amazing is that some newspapers and people in authority will reproduce the nonsense. In some respects, mankind has not advanced that much since the days when witches were burned at the stake. Somehow, people... →

It’s brain power that is the winning element in sport

By: Kelvin Kemm 19th August 2016 Watching the Lions rugby team playing in the final games of the Super Rugby was fantastic. They played like real stars. What struck me particularly was that the reality of rugby at that level is that it is a case of brains rather than brawn. The Lions used brains. Very visible was their fast... →

Much-hyped flight just shows what solar energy will not do

By: Kelvin Kemm 12th August 2016 The solar-powered aircraft dubbed Solar Impulse 2 recently completed its mission of a round-the-world flight powered only by solar energy. This was an amazing achievement of physics. It was also a landmark achievement by the two pilots, Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg. The pilots have to... →

Antinuke lobby’s amazing distortion and dishonesty

By: Kelvin Kemm 5th August 2016 Something that is really strange is the amount of sheer distortion and dishonesty that appears in the nuclear power debate internationally. The antinuclear lobby has complete paranoia about nuclear power and, in many instances, does not seem remotely capable of conducting an honest or reasoned... →

There’s more to history than political pacts reported by the media

By: Kelvin Kemm 29th July 2016 When history is taught in school, it is usually mainly taught as a political-type subject. In other words, it is all about what settlement followed what war, and who was in control, and so on. In reality, history is a combination of science, economics and the associated political factors. People... →

Realities of physics don’t seem to bother the greens

By: Kelvin Kemm 22nd July 2016 Physics is a subject of numbers and measurement. In physics, one has physical laws, such as the laws of motion, the laws of thermodynamics, and so on. The laws of physics can be stated in words, such as the Second Law of Motion: Force is equal to mass times acceleration. But all these laws also... →

Yet another grand space adventure unfolding

By: Kelvin Kemm 15th July 2016 Another amazing space adventure is now unfolding. The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) spacecraft, Juno, has reached its target, the planet Jupiter. It successfully went into orbit around the planet Jupiter on America’s Independence Day, July 4. Juno is only the second... →

We are not doing ‘progressed’ matriculants any favours

By: Kelvin Kemm 8th July 2016 There is this issue of the Department of Basic Education (DBE) introducing a new scheme to measure matric pass rates. Many people seem to be praising the idea, but I am not so sure; I am still thinking about it. →

There’s more to South African enviro tourism than just the Big Five

By: Kelvin Kemm 1st July 2016 South Africa has one of the most amazing collections of bird species in the world. In the Southern African region, which includes Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Botswana, there are nearly 1 000 bird species. People come from all over the world to see our birds. A couple of weeks ago, I was... →

Reflections on quality assurance in manufacturing

By: Kelvin Kemm 24th June 2016 The issue of the quality of components manufactured is a topic that comes up time and again. Let us remind ourselves of the terms QC and QA. In days gone by, people referred to QC, for ‘quality control’. In essence, what that meant was that, when something had been made, it was tested to check... →

Always do the sums when dealing with emotive social issues

By: Kelvin Kemm 17th June 2016 The issue of land and land claims continues to irritate me. Much of it is so unreasonable. It is also, of course, highly emotive, so people are often scared to even venture into the discussion. In any debate, on almost any topic, one should, early on, carry out the mathematical calculations. As... →

We can’t afford to let malaria take hold

By: Kelvin Kemm 10th June 2016 Malaria is a thoroughly unpleasant disease and people who have had it report that it really is nasty. I have spoken to a number of people who have recovered from malaria, and they all say, not again, please. Of course, malaria can also very easily be fatal. So, anybody contracting malaria has... →

Gautrain fee increase announcement indicative of poor management

By: Kelvin Kemm 3rd June 2016 Operators of the Gautrain have yet again increased the fees for the service and this irritates me. What particularly irritated me was a Gautrain spokesperson saying in the newspaper: “The Gautrain increases fees every year to keep up with inflation-related increases. Our increases are related to... →

Take emotion out of nuclear debate

By: Kelvin Kemm 27th May 2016 The entire nuclear power debate is an emotional issue in some quarters. This is a great pity because the best way to handle it is with calm, reasoned professionalism. It is a pity that this knee-jerking emotional response happens at all, but even worse is when it happens with people who should... →

Be wary of self-proclaimed environmental campaigners

By: Kelvin Kemm 20th May 2016 The concept of environmentalism is undoubtedly good. People across the plant need to have a mental frame of reference in which they appreciate living in a clean world – no litter, no waste chemicals in rivers, and so on. But it goes further than that. An appreciation of the balance of nature and... →

Misguided bonfire

By: Kelvin Kemm 13th May 2016 So, Kenya did burn its 130 t of elephant ivory. There was a dramatic picture in the newspapers of these huge piles of Ivory, beautifully stacked into patterned pyres that looked more like a major celebration than a funeral. To me it was a funeral; all those elephants died and their tusks were... →

The Hawks’ misplaced focus

By: Kelvin Kemm 6th May 2016 The special police unit, the Hawks, has been in the news a great deal of late. Unfortunately, much of the media coverage is not for the correct reasons. There have been High Court comments concerning the head of the Hawks and much of the commentary is not complimentary. I would like the Hawks in... →

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