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Fukushima, Nuclear Power Plants And The Middle East: What Could Go Wrong?
By Vanessa O'Brien | June 21 2013 9:22 PM
TEL AVIV, Israel -- As Western democracies re-evaluate their dependence on nuclear energy in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima plant meltdown in 2011, the Middle East is forging ahead into the atomic age. According to projections from Nuclear Energy Insider, which supplies forecasts and analysis on the nuclear energy markets in the Middle East and North Africa, about $200 billion will be spent over the next 15 years in the two regions, where a total of 37 new reactors will be built.
That possibility alarms many inside and outside the region. Nuclear power plants require huge volumes of water -- a potential drain of the scarce resource in the largely arid region, which is also riddled with seismic fault lines. Added to that are concerns about the potential for using peaceful nuclear production as a cover for manufacturing nuclear arms and the kind of environmental damage that occurred in Japan when a tsunami led to significant contamination at the Fukushima nuclear plant, which still causes problems with food and water supplies in the surrounding environment. Fukushima was the worst such event -- a Level 7, the maximum, on the International Nuclear and Radiological scale -- since the meltdown at Russia’s Chernobyl plant in 1986. Only two of Japan’s 50 nuclear reactors are currently in operation.
But as evidence of the increasing focus on nuclear energy in the Middle East and adjacent countries, Turkey in May signed a joint declaration awarding a Japanese-French consortium exclusive negotiating rights for a new nuclear power plant in the country. And Jordan is following suit. This month, Jordan will decide which major company -- French-Japanese consortium Areva-MHI or Russian engineering firm Atomstroyexport -- will be awarded a contract for two 1,000-megawatt nuclear reactors.
<snip>
Numerous Middle Eastern countries have either announced plans to explore atomic energy or have signed nuclear cooperation agreements, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, Syria, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman. Though few in the West trust Iran, all of the countries have declared peaceful intentions for a civilian nuclear energy program, and -- aside from Iran -- cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA. All have different reasons for going nuclear...
TEL AVIV, Israel -- As Western democracies re-evaluate their dependence on nuclear energy in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima plant meltdown in 2011, the Middle East is forging ahead into the atomic age. According to projections from Nuclear Energy Insider, which supplies forecasts and analysis on the nuclear energy markets in the Middle East and North Africa, about $200 billion will be spent over the next 15 years in the two regions, where a total of 37 new reactors will be built.
That possibility alarms many inside and outside the region. Nuclear power plants require huge volumes of water -- a potential drain of the scarce resource in the largely arid region, which is also riddled with seismic fault lines. Added to that are concerns about the potential for using peaceful nuclear production as a cover for manufacturing nuclear arms and the kind of environmental damage that occurred in Japan when a tsunami led to significant contamination at the Fukushima nuclear plant, which still causes problems with food and water supplies in the surrounding environment. Fukushima was the worst such event -- a Level 7, the maximum, on the International Nuclear and Radiological scale -- since the meltdown at Russia’s Chernobyl plant in 1986. Only two of Japan’s 50 nuclear reactors are currently in operation.
But as evidence of the increasing focus on nuclear energy in the Middle East and adjacent countries, Turkey in May signed a joint declaration awarding a Japanese-French consortium exclusive negotiating rights for a new nuclear power plant in the country. And Jordan is following suit. This month, Jordan will decide which major company -- French-Japanese consortium Areva-MHI or Russian engineering firm Atomstroyexport -- will be awarded a contract for two 1,000-megawatt nuclear reactors.
<snip>
Numerous Middle Eastern countries have either announced plans to explore atomic energy or have signed nuclear cooperation agreements, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, Syria, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman. Though few in the West trust Iran, all of the countries have declared peaceful intentions for a civilian nuclear energy program, and -- aside from Iran -- cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA. All have different reasons for going nuclear...
http://www.ibtimes.com/fukushima-nuclear-power-plants-middle-east-what-could-go-wrong-1316621
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