By Innovation-sa on December 6, 2017 in News
To fulfill its dream of attaining self-sufficiency in nuclear fuel production, Saudi Arabia has invited US companies to cooperate with the Kingdom to set up its nuclear power plants.
Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources Khalid Al-Falih emphasized that the Kingdom is only interested in developing nuclear technology for civilian use and will not involve in military purposes.
King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy, KACARE, had earlier confirmed active discussions with France’s EDF and Toshiba owned Westinghouse.
Westinghouse is currently involved in discussions with several US companies to form a consortium for a multi-billion-dollar project to build two reactors in the Kingdom.
Nuclear reactors enrich Uranium to around 5 percent purity for domestic purposes, but the same technology can be used to enrich uranium to a higher grade for making weapons. This has been the concern of Western and other countries in the region.
However, Saudi Arabia has confirmed that it aims to attain nuclear power to diversify its energy sources. This would reduce the dependence on crude to generate electricity allowing the Kingdom to increase its crude oil export.
Saudi Arabia plans to gradually install up to 17 reactors with 17.6 gigawatts of atomic capacity by 2032.
Source