Saudi Arabia to diversify in Nuclear Power

Saudi Arabia is one of the richest companies in the world with gargantuan foreign reserves which keep increasing each year,  thanks to its massive oil production. Despite not having any other industry, Saudi Arabia’s oil riches have ensured that the country remains one of the richest in the world. However, its hereditary rulers realize that the country needs to diversify from oil and look at alternate sources. The country already has ambitious plans of installing massive solar farms at the rate of 1 GW every year.

This is being done so that the crude oil is diverted from domestic consumption to exports. Saudi’s population and oil consumption is rising rapidly. Cheap oil means that Saudi Arabia is using oil to generate electricity which is impossible for other countries given the high cost of oil. If the present trend continues, than Saudi Arabia will use most of its oil for domestic consumption by 2030.

The country is also thinking of investing heavily in producing nuclear power for its power needs. The country plans to build 17 GW nuclear power capacity in the next couple of decades. This will make it the third largest nuclear equipment market after Russia and China. While China and Russia have massive domestic nuclear equipment suppliers, Saudi Arabia has a non-existent nuclear manufacturing industry. It will have to import most of the technology and equipment from foreign suppliers. Saudi rulers want to diversify their equipment imports and are in talks with a number of top nuclear equipment suppliers to meet their needs.

Read why All Nuclear Power Plants in Europe are Unsafe – $32 billion required for Safety. 

Toshiba, GE and Areva are the 3 biggest nuclear equipment suppliers in the world and own a majority of the global civilian nuclear market. They are being closed matched by newer players like Kepco and Rosatom, who want a larger share of the market. China is also becoming an important player in the global market thanks to its massive domestic industry. 

But state-run French nuclear reactor builders should get something out of Saudi Arabia’s much larger nuclear programme, with Riyadh’s plans to build up to 17,000 MW one of the world’s biggest nuclear building markets for the next two decades. More than one design would avoid over-stretching one reactor builder and allow the kingdom to sign politically potent, long-term contracts with several of its biggest trading partners.
“We see unique benefits of diversifying acquired technologies in terms of job creation, value chain localization, and knowledge transfer,” Waleed Abulfaraj said. “The current front runners are all countries which Saudi Arabia has already signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with, which include France, Korea, China, and Argentina.”

Fukushima Nightmare makes Kuwait Develop Cold Feet on Nuclear Energy,will UAE and Saudis capitulate as well

Oil Rich Middle Eastern Nations like Kuwait,UAE and Saudi Arabia have been planning to build nuclear energy plants for quite some time now. They have been extensively engaged in discussions with Asian consortia to supply technology and expertise for building nuclear power plants in their countries. The reason for their nuclear love is that these nations are seeing rapid growth in energy demand. The reason is their fast growing population which is increasing their consumption of oil and gas produced. This is reducing the export dollars from the supply of fossil fuels. The countries want to increase renewable and nuclear power so that they can conserve their depleting supplies of oil for exports. However the Fukushima incident has given some of them cold feet. While countries like Vietnam and China are pressing ahead with their nuclear expansion plans, Japan, Germany, Switzerland have decided to give up nuclear power. Widespread nuclear protests in Germany made the government take the drastic action of stopping a number of nuclear reactors. Kuwait Develops Cold Feet on Nuclear Energy,will UAE and Saudies capitulate as well