Middle East Countries Race for Nuclear Power

(Sept. 24) -- Nations in the Middle East, rich in oil, natural gas and volatile politics, are pursuing nuclear power with a headlong vigor that gives some analysts pause.

As Iran finally loads radioactive fuel into its long-stalled plant in the port city of Bushehr, 12 other countries in the region are taking steps toward making commercial nuclear energy. According to the World Nuclear Association, the region holds the densest concentration on earth of countries seeking to generate nuclear electricity for the first time. If all proceeds as planned, reactors will start coming online by 2017 or 2018, with more following through 2030.

Many deals are in the making. This week the U.S. signed a nuclear cooperation deal with Tunisia similar to the one it inked with the United Arab Emirates last year. On Monday, Russia signed a cooperation agreement to help Kuwait develop a nuclear power program, and France has deals with both Tunisia and Kuwait.

Jordan, which would like to derive 30 percent of its electricity from nuclear reactors, drew up a pact earlier this month with Japan, allowing huge conglomerates like Mitsubishi and Toshiba to sell reactors there. And Egypt last month picked a coastal Mediterranean site for its first nuclear reactor and expects to seek international bids in December for the construction contract.

In April, Saudi Arabia announced it would set aside a section of the capital, Riyadh, to be powered solely by nuclear energy, and two months later, the Saudi government announced a joint venture with a Japanese company, Toshiba, and two American companies, the Shaw Group and Exelon, to build and run two nuclear plants to generate electricity.

Sudan, Algeria, Libya and Morocco also have nuclear energy proposals in earlier stages. "The use of atomic energy is an inevitable choice in the development of Arab countries," Abdelmajid Mahjoub, chairman of the Arab Atomic Energy Agency, said at an agency meeting in Tunis over the summer.

But why is it inevitable? Looming in the background is the widespread suspicion that the rush for civilian nuclear power is also covert preparation for a nuclear arms race.

Many fear that Iran, despite its president's denials, will use its nuclear facilities to manufacture fuel for atomic bombs. And experts have long assumed that Israel, which has a research reactor and wants to build a commercial one, has already secretly joined the nuclear weapons club.

"Having nuclear power is a symbol of national prestige and a politically popular project. It showcases scientific and technological knowledge," Harvard University's Martin B. Malin told AOL News. "But it's really the presumed security implications" of nuclear power that are the real draw for these countries, he said.

"They are nervous about Iran's nuclear ambitions and would like to have some capacity in the nuclear realm," said Malin, an expert in arms control and international relations in the Middle East, and director of the Managing the Atom project at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

He is one of several U.S. analysts who are unsettled by the prospect of a whole flock of countries in the volatile region with access to the radioactive fuels for nuclear power. "This is my personal view, but I'm not sure that it's a good thing at all," Malin said.

Andrew Light, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, agrees. "There's a slippery slope, a tipping point," he told AOL News. "They want to be able to pass from civilian to military uses quickly. And it's a vicious circle, because there's not a fundamental level of trust."

Under President George W. Bush, negotiators for the nuclear cooperation agreement with the UAE included a preamble that expressed the intention that enriched uranium be imported rather than made from processing reactor-grade fuel in the country. The Obama administration pushed that clause into the body of the contract, making it binding. The U.S. will also be able to monitor safeguards in exchange for its nuclear technology exports.

But Malin, for one, still has concerns. In other areas, notably money laundering, the UAE has enacted regulations but sometimes failed to implement or enforce them. He said the UAE was "a transshipment point" for the network of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the top Pakistani atomic weapons scientist who sold nuclear knowledge to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Meanwhile, Malin noted, "we have not succeeded in Iran, Egypt and Jordan," which have all balked at similar terms, citing their rights as sovereign nations to control the fuel source for their electricity. Indeed, Thomas D'Agostino, U.S. undersecretary for nuclear security, appeared to back off that demand in remarks to reporters this week in Vienna, where the International Atomic Energy Agency is meeting.

There's big business at stake: Reactors cost billions of dollars to build, and foreign expertise will be necessary to operate them, at least at first. It's no coincidence that a private conference about nuclear energy in the Middle East and North Africa will follow the Vienna meeting.

And it's no coincidence that an official from the U.S. Export-Import Bank is on the attendance list. Demand for electricity is growing quickly in this part of the world -- protesters blocked highways in Egypt after recent power outages -- and some of the countries working toward nuclear reactors, such as Jordan and Turkey, are not rich in fossil fuels.

For those that do have large reserves, like the Emirates and the Saudis, it may make economic sense to export their natural gas as prices rise, rather than using it at home to make electricity.

"This can be good for the United States and for the worldwide supply, because oil and natural gas are fungible," said William Tobey, who was a senior nonproliferation official at the National Nuclear Security Administration under President George W. Bush.

But that scenario might not necessarily make a dent in global greenhouse gas emissions, an often cited benefit of nuclear power.

Tobey thinks the Mideast tack toward nuclear power is worth the risk. "I may hold a minority view, but I don't believe that states have nuclear weapons programs just because they have nuclear energy programs," he said.