Jordan close to commissioning two nuclear reactors, declines to sign accord with U.S. - The Washington Post:
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Jordan is close to commissioning two nuclear reactors, to be built about 100 kilometers south of the Syrian border, as atomic energy spreads through the Arab world, even as uprisings convulse the region.Continue reading in The Washington Post
Amman will decide next month which of competing Russian and French-Japanese led consortiums will build two one-gigawatt nuclear reactors near the capital at an estimated cost of 12 billion euros, said Khaled Toukan, chairman of the Jordan Atomic Energy Commission.
...Jordan’s nuclear efforts were driven by its almost total dependence on oil and gas imports for energy generation and a domestic energy shortfall estimated to reach 6.8 gigawatts by 2030. The country, a hereditary monarchy of 6.25 million people, is economically troubled and has been plagued by sporadic unrest since the start of the uprisings that began to sweep the Arab world more than two years ago.
“We are living now in an energy crisis, a very serious crisis,” Toukan said.
While it was unclear how the Jordan project would be financed, insiders said it was given impetus by seed funding drawn from a broad development aid grant given to Jordan by the UAE. A Jordanian nuclear delegation is visiting the UAE this week. Observers said the UAE government was keen to help Amman because it wanted access to the country’s atomic fuel reserves and technical expertise for its own project to build four nuclear reactors with a total 5.6-gigawatt capacity by 2020.
“They [Jordan] have uranium — and they are churning out nuclear qualified engineers,” said one person familiar with the matter.
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