Electrical power generation in the Middle East may have become a bargaining chip in a different power contest—a contest over security cum political dominion. The region has pressing needs for developing new power-generation capacities to supply its growing economies, but when the GCC heads of state decided at the end of last year to pursue a research program into civilian use of nuclear energy, the political questions were inevitable.
Does the GCC want to challenge Iran’s controversial nuclear program—that red flag for the US and most Western governments because of its military potential—by making sure it does not fall behind a threatening neighbor in nuclear technology?
Or does the GCC plan have a primarily economic rationale?
Over the past few weeks, supporters of building nuclear power plant(s) in the Middle East have argued that a plant could be completed in seven to 17 years’ time. The UAE—but also Jordan and Egypt—were named as countries where Middle Eastern nuclear reactors could be located.
Supporters of the idea pointed to the fact that France relies on nuclear power for a large portion of its electricity production. Arguments in support of developing nuclear capacities even went as far as saying that countries like Turkey have the same skills and human resources as developed countries, shifting the issue towards national self-assertion vis-à-vis other nations.
Energy demands racing ahead
In light of the growth of existing production capacities and demand, it is usually said that the energy needs of MENA countries are growing at about 6% per year, with an expected continuation of that high-growth scenario for at least another 10 years because of the region’s population growth and ambitious development plans.
However, adding a nuclear component to regional power projects—from the GCC electricity grid under implementation to national power generation programs in North Africa—may require shifts in energy policies and, as one Kuwaiti academic suggested, a cultural shift to make countries more collaborative.
In Saudi Arabia, which accounts for just under half of GCC power generation, electricity generation grew at a cumulative average growth rate of 6.9% between 2000 and 2005. The Saudi Electricity Company has a number of new power generation projects lined up, with an investment volume of over $12 billion from today until 2017 in power generation from fossil fuel.
Egypt, which relies heavily at present on its Aswan Dam for power generation, has a program for refurbishing and expanding gas-burning plants—but it is also looking at the nuclear option. The reason for the country’s interest in a nuclear reactor is said to be that the Nile republic will only be able to export liquefied natural gas to Europe in the amounts it plans if it covers its domestic needs with nuclear production.
According to available research, investments into MENA power projects over the next four years will have to exceed $35 billion to increase the generating capacities by more than 40%. These additions are almost all in conventional power and have advanced beyond the initial planning stage.
Nuclear units under construction worldwide
Updated: 2007
A nuclear reactor project, by contrast, is not likely to be on the books for several years after the day that the GCC plan for a nuclear research program is implemented. Considerations in preparation for such a reactor project will have to include serious issues that go far beyond financing and the feasibility of nuclear power generation during the lifespan of a reactor, which, with current technology, is described by European experts to be around 40 years at best.
Few installations are more heavily scrutinized by the international community for security reasons than nuclear reactors. The memories of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl rest heavy on the minds of emergency planners, because one extreme incident in a nuclear power plant can affect an entire region for years. This is not a question of some countries having a better track record on safety than others: in Japan, one of the most safety-conscious countries, several minor incidents last month led to a further tightening of technical reporting and oversight regulations for civilian nuclear facilities.
Secondly, at least in the perception of some planners, putting a nuclear power plant into the Middle East may be like putting a juicy bone in front of a dog. Potential terrorist threats against a nuclear reactor in Yanbu or on the UAE coast would, certainly, raise serious objections in Western nations, who would likely oppose selling the requisite number of reactors to the Arab world for extensive electricity generation in the GCC or North Africa. (The Levant, as long as peace is absent between Israel and its neighbors, seems the least likely candidate for a nuclear power plant.)
Nuclear technology has been a remote issue for American and most European energy planners for at least the past two decades. The high cost of building a secure nuclear plant has been one deterrent, which led energy companies to shift their focus from nuclear power in the 1990s. In several European countries, most notably Germany, basic fear and grassroots political opposition to anything nuclear has forced a halt of new nuclear power plants, both light water or heavy water reactors.
Top 10 countries generating nuclear power – 2005 (Billion kWh)
Source: International Atomic Energy Agency and Global Energy Decisions / Energy Information Administration
Updated 11/06
A lot of trouble, but an opening of discussion
The dangers of uranium enrichment, the processing of nuclear waste, and most of all, the need for storing this waste for centuries, have restricted the civilian nuclear options. The way in which North Korea’s Kim Jong Il has played the nuclear threat card in his impoverished country’s poker game with the United States, and the uproar created by the Iranian nuclear program despite Tehran’s insistence on the program’s civilian aims, have drawn new attention to the possibility of using nuclear programs in contemporary political power games.
The high costs of energy worldwide and perhaps less nuclear-phobic attitudes among younger people today seem to have encouraged supporters of nuclear power to return to the table and discuss the use of this technology anew. The current plans for a feasibility study on a nuclear program for the GCC is not the only recently reignited debate over atomic energy. In Europe and the US as well, nuclear power is a growing discussion topic.
As the GCC and other Middle Eastern nations to investigate their nuclear options, the new nuclear files come with many open questions about political and security risks, but also costs and viabilities. The rich countries of the region are among the world’s heaviest consumers of electricity per capita. Before the region is likely to see nuclear power sources for its economies, power conservation and increases in conventional production are likely to be the topics that can have the most positive impact on the energy sector.
