L'Egitto ha deciso di rilanciare il programma per l'energia nucleare sospeso da ormai vent'anni.
Egypt to revive nuclear power program
Egypt will revive the civilian nuclear energy program it suspended 20 years ago, local media reported.
The government's Supreme Council for Energy met over the weekend to discuss alternative energy sources including the nuclear option, Egypt’s official news agency MENA reported, quoting top government officials.
"The meeting decided to immediately begin studying a nuclear alternative in the light of increased need in Egypt," cabinet spokesman Magdi Radi told MENA.
“The rate of consumption has surpassed the rate of development, and alternatives from other energy sources ... are limited while the nuclear option has spread in the world as a result of an increase in safety," Radi added.
Demand for electricity in Egypt has been growing at an average rate of 7% a year and the country faces worsening shortages.
On Thursday, President Hosni Mubarak said Egypt needed to examine new sources of energy, including the nuclear option.
"We must benefit from sources of new and renewable energy, including peaceful uses of nuclear energy," he said.
Meanwhile, Egypt's energy minister, Hassan Yunes, told the state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper that his country plans to have an operational nuclear power station within ten years.
The 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plant will be built at El-Dabaa on the Mediterranean coast at a cost of between $1.5 billion and $2 billion, Yunes said, adding that the Egyptian government would seek foreign investment for the project.
IAEA investigations
Although Egypt gave up a serious nuclear energy program following the accident at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine in 1986, it still has a small experimental nuclear reactor.
In February 2005, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced that it was investigating Egypt's nuclear activities.
The IAEA concluded that Egypt had carried out atomic research, but that the research wasn’t aimed at the development of nuclear weapons and didn’t include uranium enrichment.
The Egyptian government admitted that it failed to disclose the full extent of its nuclear research activities to the IAEA, saying that its failure was due to a misunderstanding over exactly what had to be revealed.
NPT signatory
Egypt, a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, had long called for the elimination of nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
Israel, the only nuclear-armed state in the region, maintains a policy of ambiguity concerning its nuclear program, neither admitting nor denying that it does posses nuclear weapons.
But many experts believe that the Jewish state, which refuses to ratify the NPT, has more than 200 atomic bombs in its arsenal.
Meanwhile, Iran, a signatory to the NPT, is facing international pressure over its nuclear program, which the U.S. claims is a guise for developing atomic weapons.
Tehran insists that it has a right to work on a peaceful nuclear program as a signatory to the NPT.
Some analysts say that key regional U.S ally Egypt isn’t expected to encounter the same pressure Tehran is facing over its nuclear plans.
Last week, the U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Francis J. Ricciardone told Egypt’s al-Mehwar TV that Washington would have no objections to Egypt's peaceful use of nuclear energy.
27-09-2006 Aljazera.com
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