The Suit Magazine

While Australia does not currently have a nuclear power station, Dr. Hardy believes that Australia has made major contribution to greenhouse gas reduction by supplying uranium to other energy hungry countries. This enabled Australia to help reduce environmentally harmful emissions. For this edition, we asked Dr Hardy to elaborate on the latest developments are in the nuclear energy field. Dr. Hardy chose the topic of the recent Middle Eastern conversion to nuclear power.

 Nuclear Power in the Middle East: Why, Who, Where and How?
In the last six months, several countries in the Middle East have been moving rapidly to construct nuclear power plants. Although these countries are generally considered to be rich in oil and gas resources, this has proven to be untrue.  So why are these countries now converting to nuclear power? Dr. Hardy believes the reasons include:       
                                                      
●   The opportunity to sell oil and gas on world markets at increasing prices for hard currency;        
●   A willingness to reduce their carbon emissions by using nuclear power (as well as investing in the renewable of wind and solar);
                                    
●  The potential reduction in revenue as oil and gas resources are depleted or as overseas countries reduce their demand;                                            
●  Claims that electricity from nuclear power is cheaper than electricity from oil and gas;            
●  A need to reduce oil and gas imports in some Middle East countries nor rich in these resources;    
●  A need to diversify energy resources and provide greater long-term energy security; and        
●  National pride and political strength of being in the “Nuclear Power Club”.

The United Arab Emirates took a major step forward in 2010 by signing a contract with a group of South Korean companies to supply four Korean-designed nuclear power plants at a total cost of US$20B. These will each have a nominal capacity of 1,400 MWe. The site chosen is at Braka, on the coast about 150km from Dubai. The first is expected to be operating in 2017 and all four by 2020. This nuclear power park will add over 5,000MWe to the present grid capacity of 18GWe which is currently supplied by gas-powered stations. The electricity demand is estimated to increase by 5-7% per year.

Egypt has also embarked on a nuclear power program. It has an installed electrical capacity of 18.5GWe supplied 16% by oil, 72% by gas and 11% by hydro, and an estimated increase of demand of 7% per year. .It has limited oil and gas resources compared with the UAE or Saudi Arabia. It signed an agreement in 2008 with Russia to assist in building a 1,000MWE nuclear plant at al-Dabaa,. It also signed a US$160M contract with the international company Worley Parsons based in Sydney to assist in planning its nuclear program. It expects its first nuclear power plant to operate in 2017 and has initial plans for four other plants.

Iran has a Russian-designed nuclear power plant nearing completion at Busheyr on the Persian Gulf after many years of stops and starts in its construction. It expects it to be operating by 2011. It currently has an electrical capacity of 31GWe supplied 72% by gas. Iran has 11% of the world’s oil reserves and 16% of the world’s gas reserves.

Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Syria are also assessing their options to provide the increasing amounts of electricity need by their developing populations and they have limited resources of oil and gas. Several overseas vendors of nuclear technology and services are beating a path to their doors in the hope of securing new contracts.

The final conclusion is that several Middle East countries are rapidly investing in nuclear power for some or all of the reasons discussed above. Besides the need to produce the electricity the countries’ populations require, these Middle Eastern countries are also interested in using part of the waste heat from these plants for desalination. This desalination process would be used to supply their increasing needs for water. Power, water and food production will be their priorities in the near future, and nuclear power can contribute to all of these needs.
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Dr Hardy is currently the Secretary of the Australian Nuclear Association and Immediate Past-President of the Pacific Nuclear Council which represents over 60,000 nuclear professionals in the Pacific region. He has two doctorates and had a distinguished career for over 30 years in three national nuclear laboratories in the UK, USA and Australia. He is the Managing Director of a consulting company in Sydney and a director of two other companies in the nuclear field. He has published over 100 technical papers and two books on nuclear energy.

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