Arab nuclear ambitions stir arms race jitters

Arab countries offer economic justifications for exploring nuclear options in long-term energy strategies to conserve dwindling hydrocarbon reserves and meet rising demand as their economies grow and their populations expand.

“Some countries have oil and maybe they are not in a hurry to start a programme to build nuclear power plants tomorrow, but they are interested in feasibility studies,” Mahmoud Nasreddin, director-general of the Arab Atomic Energy Agency told Reuters.

“It is wise to start thinking about diversifying their sources of energy — solar, wind or nuclear,” he said.
Such reasoning is valid, according to Hans-Holger Rogner, the IAEA’s section head for planning and economic studies.

Arab fossil fuel reserves will run out one day. Nuclear power would allow a larger share of oil and gas to be exported, boosting hard currency revenue, and help counter global warming.

Even relatively small oil-exporting countries could muster the resources to develop nuclear power, Rogner argued.

“It’s important that China is ready to assist in nuclear technology transfer in exchange for oil. In terms of financial resources, you have to ask what is the cost of not going nuclear,” he said, citing rising prices of oil, gas and coal.

Such logic may hold water for Egypt and its North African neighbours, but it is harder to grasp the nuclear rationale for a colossal oil producer like Saudi Arabia, which announced plans for an atomic energy scheme with its Gulf partners last year.

Khaleej Times