The UAE energy minister Suhail Al Mazrouei said yesterday that the country’s nuclear power ambitions were on track even as global safety and security concerns hamper the outlook for the sector.
“[Pursuing nuclear power] doesn’t mean that we didn’t take some of the accidents — like Japan’s Fukushima — seriously,” said the minister. He added that to build nuclear power plants, several factors needed to be taken into consideration — mainly location.
In 2011, following a major earthquake, a tsunami disabled the power supply and cooling of three Fukushima Daiichi reactors in Japan, causing a nuclear accident. The disaster led to the halt of several nuclear energy projects around the world including in Germany and China.
Mr Al Mazrouei said that the Barakah nuclear site was different. It is in a stable area, away from threats like that from a tsunami, he said. “Our programme is inside the Gulf — a very safe place from under the ground and over the ground risk,” he said.
Overseen by the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (Enec) the site 300 kilometres west of the city of Abu Dhabi will house four nuclear reactors that will generate 5,600 megawatts of power and is being built by a South Korean consortium, led by Korea Electric Power Corporation (Kepco). The first reactor is set to come online in 2017 and the entire plant will be complete in 2020.
“For us, we addressed [which forms of energy should be used] and decided nuclear was [viable],” said Mr Al Mazrouei.
To increase awareness and address concerns, the UAE government has held more than 16 community forums throughout the country with over 6,000 people in attendance. “We’ve addressed [concerns] and we have a very high rate of acceptance,” the minister said adding that safety was still a top priority.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) said late last year that almost 200 of the 434 reactors in operation around the globe would be retired by 2040, and estimated the cost of decommissioning them at more than US$100 billion — a figure experts say could be much higher after nuclear waste disposal and long-term storage are taken into account. Yesterday, the minister also said that the drop in oil prices was unlikely to last for long and that the country would not alter its energy strategy because of the price fall.
“I doubt it is going to last for very long,” Mr Al Mazrouei said, without elaborating on the time frame for any price recovery. “I am a believer in sustainable development, and sustainable development in the oil sector can’t be achieved under current prices.” Yesterday, Brent crude traded around $49.81 a barrel down from highs of $115 last summer. Mr Al Mazrouei said the UAE would continue its strategy of diversifying its energy mix for power generation.
“We should not change course because of what happened [with oil prices],” he said.
On the country’s natural gas consumption, Mr Al Mazrouei said the UAE was 50 per cent short of its needs and would be placing more import orders.
This month the UAE said it wanted to import more gas from Qatar through the Dolphin pipeline.
lgraves@thenational.ae
* with Reuters
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