Egypt's ministry of electricity says it wants to push ahead with the construction of the country's first nuclear power station, reviving plans drawn up under former president Hosni Mubarak.
Egypt
's
ministry of electricity says it wants to push ahead with the construction of
the country's first nuclear power station, reviving plans drawn up under former
president Hosni Mubarak.
The ministry plans to submit a proposal for the first of several nuclear power
plants to
Egypt
's new
president Mohammed Morsi, who took office late last month, according to Akhtam
Aboul Ela, the spokesman for the country's ministry of electricity.
Mr. Aboul Ela said he expects the project will be approved because of Mr.
Morsi's campaign pledges in support of nuclear power. The first plant will have
a capacity of about 1,200 megawatts and will be sited at El Dabaa, on
Egypt
's
northwest coast.
"We already have approval from the nuclear regulatory body of
Egypt
[the
Nuclear Power Plant Authority] and also we have a political decision in place
for using nuclear energy to produce electricity," Mr Aboul Ela said. In an
interview during his election campaign, Mr. Morsi said he supported the
construction of nuclear power plants.
Mr. Aboul Ela stressed that the new plant would be built in life with
safeguards set by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
"One of his programs for entering the presidential race included having a
nuclear power plant for producing electricity so I expect support [from
president Morsi]," he said, without giving a timeframe for approval. Mr.
Aboul Ela stressed that the new plant would be built in life with safeguards
set by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Under former president Mubarak, who was toppled in an uprising last February,
Egypt
drew
up plans to build four nuclear reactors by the year 2025 with a capacity of
4,000 megawatts.
Egypt
,
which has an installed capacity of about 23,500 megawatts, needs another 3,000
megawatts of electricity to meet the country's growing demand, a statement from
the ministry of electricity said Sunday.
In August 2010, former president Mubarak ended a lengthy period of speculation
over the contested site of a nuclear plant by selecting El Dabaa. The project
has been targeted by protesters who claim that their land was wrongly taken by
the government to make way for the nuclear plant. Earlier this year the site
was shut down as a result of protests, local Egyptian newspaper reports say.
The plant is part of
Egypt
's
ongoing effort to shift away from oil and gas to other sources of energy.
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