“Because Nuclear Power Is Less Costly"

Reuters has put up an interesting “Fact Box” detailing which countries in the middle East and African want to knock together a few nuclear energy plants. It includes countries we’ve discussed here but a fair number we haven’t, including Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Libya, Namibia, Niger, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and UAE.

Some of these are in very early stages of planning and the list is not free of red flags ready to spring up. But it’s a great overview and it’s interesting to see countries with significant supplies of uranium pursue nuclear energy. That’s energy security writ large, something uranium-rich, nuclear-free Australia should consider.

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There have been a few news stories about the Japanese reluctance to work with India on the latter’s nuclear efforts, but we admit we steered around it because we didn’t quite get the gist of it – India has plenty of partners without worrying about Japan. But apparently, it’s important to the two countries, as this Indian story indicates:

Japan is set to be India’s new ally on civil nuclear energy, with Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama expressing a willingness to collaborate with India’s civil nuclear energy program. This hint by Hatoyama is a shot in the arm for India’s campaign for energy security and power diversification to meet the ever growing demand of both industry and farm sectors.

We cleaned up the poor translation here, so visit the original for the full flavor. Anyhow, we still wonder if this is an historical and cultural landmark rather than a political one. The story hints at this:

India not signing the comprehensive test ban treaty (CTBT) has been the biggest stumbling block for exploring full-fledged partnership with Japan on civil nuclear energy front.

And that treaty, for we hope obvious reasons, is very important to Japan. But word from India seems tepid:

[Indian Prime Minister Manmohan] Singh said: “Should the US and China ratify the CTBT, a new situation will emerge.”

And yet it looks very likely that Japan and India will make an agreement over nuclear technology. Especially where this dips into cultural waters, we really have no comment – that would be presumptuous - but in practical terms only, it seems a potential win for both sides. We’ll have to see if this deal consummates or withers after Singh and Hatoyama meet for talks. (Any elucidation on this from our Japanese and Indian friends welcome.)

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And here’s an interesting story from Emirates Business – we expect the whole Dubai World story has caused them some sleepless nights – on just why UAE is considering nuclear energy:

"These are very important and strategic long-term projects, which will contribute to saving the UAE's hydrocarbon wealth and at the same time boosting its crude exports as nuclear power will partly offset the rise in the UAE's energy consumption… this in turn will allow the UAE to increase revenue," said Mohammed Asumi, a Dubai-based Gulf economist.

"I also expect these projects, when commissioned, to depress electricity generation costs in the UAE because nuclear power is less costly."

Well, we knew money had to play a part somewhere in this, but we were happy to see Asumi note that a nuclear plant will bring down costs. Presumably, UAE could also export some of the nuclear generated electricity to neighbors such as Oman and Qatar.

As a business story, this goes a bit into the weeds, but is very well done ( by Nadim Kawach) and comprehensible. Well worth a read.

A UAE spaceport. See here for more.

Local tourism was not attractive enough that UAE’s other lesser known state of Ras Al Khaimah is now the venue for the 30 billion USD Spaceport. Space Adventures is developing commercial spaceports in this region. They are the pioneers of space tourism.

Or something. We admit we make fun of the grandiosity of UAE every time we write about it, perhaps in part out of discomfort over what it takes in resources and human capital to maintain that grandiosity and definitely because the line between grandiosity and pomposity is thin. We can’t pretend to know what will now happen in UAE in the wake of Dubai World – and not just or even primarily its nuclear ambitions - but it does make the fun rather ashy and dry.

Sneak Peek

There's an invisible force powering and propelling our way of life.
It's all around us. You can't feel it. Smell it. Or taste it.
But it's there all the same. And if you look close enough, you can see all the amazing and wondrous things it does.
It not only powers our cities and towns.
And all the high-tech things we love.
It gives us the power to invent.
To explore.
To discover.
To create advanced technologies.
This invisible force creates jobs out of thin air.
It adds billions to our economy.
It's on even when we're not.
And stays on no matter what Mother Nature throws at it.
This invisible force takes us to the outer reaches of outer space.
And to the very depths of our oceans.
It brings us together. And it makes us better.
And most importantly, it has the power to do all this in our lifetime while barely leaving a trace.
Some people might say it's kind of unbelievable.
They wonder, what is this new power that does all these extraordinary things?

A Design Team Pictures the Future of Nuclear Energy

For more than 100 years, the shape and location of human settlements has been defined in large part by energy and water. Cities grew up near natural resources like hydropower, and near water for agricultural, industrial and household use.

So what would the world look like with a new generation of small nuclear reactors that could provide abundant, clean energy for electricity, water pumping and desalination and industrial processes?

Hard to say with precision, but Third Way, the non-partisan think tank, asked the design team at the Washington, D.C. office of Gensler & Associates, an architecture and interior design firm that specializes in sustainable projects like a complex that houses the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys. The talented designers saw a blooming desert and a cozy arctic village, an old urban mill re-purposed as an energy producer, a data center that integrates solar panels on its sprawling flat roofs, a naval base and a humming transit hub.

In the converted mill, high temperat…

Seeing the Light on Nuclear Energy

If you think that there is plenty of electricity, that the air is clean enough and that nuclear power is a just one among many options for meeting human needs, then you are probably over-focused on the United States or Western Europe. Even then, you’d be wrong.

That’s the idea at the heart of a new book, “Seeing the Light: The Case for Nuclear Power in the 21st Century,” by Scott L. Montgomery, a geoscientist and energy expert, and Thomas Graham Jr., a retired ambassador and arms control expert.

Billions of people live in energy poverty, they write, and even those who don’t, those who live in places where there is always an electric outlet or a light switch handy, we need to unmake the last 200 years of energy history, and move to non-carbon sources. Energy is integral to our lives but the authors cite a World Health Organization estimate that more than 6.5 million people die each year from air pollution. In addition, they say, the global climate is heading for ruinous instability. E…

NEI Nuclear Notes

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