GCC states still keen to pursue nuclear power programmes (page 1 of 2)

As Japan this week commemorated the 19,000 people who lost their lives in last year's earthquake and tsunami, radiation continued to bleed relentlessly out of the Fukushima Daiichi plant north of Tokyo, a grim reminder that the physical - not to mention emotional - wounds of March 11, 2011 have yet to heal. The disaster, which took place when the six-reactor facility was devastated by a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and then hit by a tsunami, displaced 50,000 households and was the worst nuclear incident since Chernobyl 25 years previously.

Thousands of miles away, in the corridors of power in the Gulf, the Fukushima disaster has nevertheless done little to dim the appetites of regional leaders determined to develop their own nuclear energy programmes. Leading the charge is the UAE, followed by Saudi Arabia and then Qatar, and while the remaining Gulf nations are struggling to realise their nuclear power ambitions, cooling towers are likely to rise in the desert before the end of this decade.

"Even after Fukushima, at a time when most places are holding off on nuclear power, there are still places looking to develop their own nuclear technology," says Samuel Ciszuk, an energy economics analyst with UK-based consultancy KBC. "Today, it's really in the Gulf where things seem to be moving forward at a faster pace."

Nuclear programmes make economic sense

The economic rationale behind Gulf governments' pursuit of nuclear power is compelling. Each barrel of oil costs around $5 to produce, and it takes around three barrels of oil to produce the equivalent of one barrel of electricity. The Gulf states can burn those three barrels to satisfy domestic consumption, where heavy subsidies mean the oil producer is unlikely to make back its production costs, or they can sell those three barrels on the international market for upwards of $300.

"These are very hydrocarbon-reliant economies, so they are freeing up more resources for export by using nuclear power to cater to domestic demand," says Ciszuk at KBC. "It's revenue protection and revenue replacement."

In the UAE, the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) has been granted approval to undertake groundwork preparation at the site of the Arab world's first two nuclear power reactors. Approval for this work has been granted by the UAE Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (FANR), the independent nuclear regulator, and The Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi (EAD), the emirate's environmental regulator. Although ENEC is not authorised to pour initial safety concrete until it is granted a construction licence from FANR, the UAE is expected to have its first reactor up and running in 2017.

ENEC submitted its 9,000-page application for Braka Units 1 and 2 to FANR on December 27, 2010 and the application is currently under review. Braka 1 and 2 are two of four proposed reactors, at a total cost of around $20bn, the construction contract for which was awarded in 2009 to a Korean consortium led by KEPCO. Moreover, in March the Korean minister of knowledge economy, Hong Suk-woo, suggested that the UAE was looking to build an additional four reactors at the site, although he added that no decision had yet been made.

ENEC's designs have been altered in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, and the plant will now be sited on higher ground that had previously been planned, in addition to a number of other design tweaks intended to make the plant safer.