Tunisia has joined the growing list of countries turning to nuclear energy to provide a dependable and secure source of power. Becoming a member of the select nuclear club follows signature of a 20-year cooperation agreement drawn up with France in mid-2008, during the visit of French President Nicholas Sarkozy to Tunisia. The agreement has also been given the go-ahead under the guarantee system operated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Approval of the Franco-Tunisian deal means that Tunisia can develop nuclear energy for peaceful means. During a recent visit by a senior delegation of officials from the IAEA, a spokesman declared the agency’s willingness to help Tunisia build an electricity generating plant by 2020, as well as in assisting in training qualified personnel to manage it.
Production of electricity in Tunisia is increasingly dependent on natural gas as a primary source of fuel. The gas is pumped from the country’s own offshore installations, operated by BG and supplemented by royalties taken from the trans-continental pipeline that delivers Algerian gas from Hassi Rmel to Italy, which comes on shore at the island of Sicily. Although Tunisia is operating a successful energy management program, many feel that it is only a short-term solution and that over the long-term, an alternative source of energy that does not rely on ever-depleting national resources or foreign production is vital. Industry experts say the demand for electricity could almost double to 30 billion kilowatt hours by 2020. Nuclear energy would satisfy up to a quarter of additional demand.
The need for nuclear energy will also increase as Tunisia seeks to meet the growing demand for clean drinking water. A French study compared four nuclear power options with combined-cycle gas turbines and found that nuclear desalination costs were about half those of the gas plant for multiple effect distillation technology, and about one-third less for the reverse osmosis process. Small and medium-sized nuclear reactors are suitable for desalination, often with co-generation of electricity using low-pressure steam from the turbine and hot sea water fed from the final cooling system. The main opportunities for nuclear plants have been identified in the 80-100,000-cubic-meters-per-day and 200-500,000-cubic-meters-per-day ranges. In the meantime, 14 new standard desalination plants are to be built in southern Tunisia. Work has already started on three in the Tozeur area, which will have capacity of 6,000, 4,000 and 650 cubic meters per day, respectively. Total investment in the three projects will be about $13.3 million. The state water utility, Société Nationale d’Exploitation et de Distribution des Eaux (SONEDE), is preparing international tenders for the remaining 11 plants.
Energy for everything
For Tunisia, the production of nuclear energy would not only be a means to satisfy the ever-growing demand for electricity or to desalinate seawater for drinking purposes, but would also have applications in the fields of industry, agriculture and medicine. For France, signature of the agreement signifies yet another successful operation in the Maghreb, where it has already negotiated nuclear cooperation agreements with Algeria, Libya and Morocco. Morocco is expected to have nuclear power by 2016 and Algeria a couple of years later. A major producer and consumer of nuclear energy for its own national needs, France has also concluded agreements with Arab states in the Gulf region, many of which are looking to acquire nuclear technology for energy diversification, electricity needs and water desalination.
Under the joint Franco-Tunisian agreement, Tunisia’s state power and gas utility, Société Tunisienne de l’Electricité et du Gaz (STEG), will carry out technical and economic feasibility studies into the construction of a nuclear power plant, with a target date of 2020. STEG’s administrative affairs director, Mohamed Ben Ftima, said that although the program is only in is early stages, “STEG staff have already been sent to France to start basic training on nuclear programs.”
The cooperation program will also cover fundamental and applied research, safety and security regarding nuclear energy development and the valorization of uranium resources in Tunisia, the management of nuclear waste, legislation for a development framework and preparation of a public information program designed to alleviate scaremongering regarding the safety of nuclear energy.
