São Paulo – Jordan is going to produce uranium starting in 2013 and start generating nuclear energy in 2019. This year, the country should import 98% of the energy it consumes, and it wishes to reduce its dependence on other countries, especially on the gas imported from Egypt. According to the official Jordanian news agency Petra, the country considers nuclear energy production as strategic.
In August, the Jordanian government received proposals from three consortiums interested in building a nuclear plant in the country. One such consortium comprises the French company Areva and the Japanese Mitsubishi. The Russian company Atomstryesport and Atomic Energy of Canada are also bidders.
During a discussion panel on the matter held in Petra last Wednesday (21), the Jordanian minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Khalid Toukan, claimed that nuclear power is stable, clean and not interfered with by the ups and downs of the oil barrel price.
The future nuclear plant will be near Kherbat Al Samra, approximately 40 kilometres away from Amman, the capital. The previous choice for the reactor to be built in, Aqaba, has been ruled out because the terrain is too rough, and too much infrastructure investment would be required.
Dependence on energy from other countries is not the only reason for the building of the reactor in Jordan, which maintains nuclear cooperation agreements with Turkey, Brazil, France, Russia, Italy and South Korea, among others. Jordan needs to desalinate the water it takes from the Red Sea and the Dead Sea. The transport of water extracted from these locations is too costly. The use of this technique is only viable if the cost of the energy used is low.
According to Toukan, Jordan’s present water reserves will not be enough to meet one third of the country’s needs by. Last year, Jordan imported 97% of the energy it used, at a cost of US$ 4 billion, or approximately 20% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The demand for energy grows 6% a year in the country.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
