Emirates looks to build first atomic energy reactors in western region, near Saudi Arabia

UAE proposes site near Saudi border for reactors

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The Emirates nuclear energy company announced Thursday that it has picked a site in the country’s far western region as its preferred location for the federation’s first atomic power plants.

The Emirates Nuclear Energy Corp. said it has submitted license applications for the proposed location to local regulators, who must give the green light to any nuclear sites.

ENEC hopes to build the Gulf Arab state’s first reactors at Braka, a sparsely populated site on the Persian Gulf coast near the border with Saudi Arabia. The site is about 33 miles (53 kilometers) southwest of the town of Ruwais.

It was chosen from 10 possible locations across the country, a federation of seven semiautonomous sheikdoms that sits atop nearly 100 billion barrels of proved oil reserves. The OPEC member state ranks among the world’s biggest oil exporters.

The sites were evaluated based on criteria that included seismic history, distance from population centers, security and access to evacuation routes. ENEC Chief Executive Mohamed al-Hammadi said the evaluation process met or exceeded standards elsewhere.

“The evaluation has provided an extensive amount of information which ENEC has used in its determination of where in the UAE we can locate nuclear power plants in the safest manner,” he said.

Despite its immense oil wealth, the UAE must import natural gas to run many of its existing power plants, which struggle to consistently provide electricity to all customers, especially in the hot summer months. It says its energy needs are expected to almost double by 2020.

The federal government in Abu Dhabi last year awarded a South Korean consortium the highly anticipated $20 billion contract to build four 1,400-megawatt reactors. Korea Electric Power Corp.’s bid beat out rivals from France, Japan and the United States, and marks the first time South Korea will export a nuclear power plant.

In its push for nuclear technology, the UAE signed a deal with the U.S. to import, rather than produce, fuel for its nuclear reactors. The Emirates committed not to enrich uranium or reprocess spent nuclear fuel into plutonium, which is used in nuclear bombs.

Washington had promoted its plan to help the UAE develop peaceful nuclear power as a model of the kind of cooperation it would like to achieve with Iran, which the U.S. and its allies suspect is using a civilian program as a cover to develop an atomic weapons capability.

The UAE sits just across the Persian Gulf from Iran. Although the Arab state has long-standing commercial and cultural ties to Iran, it is also wary of Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

ENEC has asked Emirati regulators to rule on its site preparation licensing request for the atomic power plant site by July 5 so work can move ahead. The country hopes to have its first reactor running by 2017.

On the Net:

Emirates Nuclear Energy Corp.: www.enec.gov.ae