Egypt's Nuclear Imbroglio

Egypt is struggling to get its nuclear energy program off the ground, three years after officially announcing the revival of its moribund civil reactor program, Dr Dominic Moran writes for ISN Security Watch.

The revived Egyptian civil nuclear program could be heading into choppy waters, with competition over the proposed site, problems in service-contract negotiations and ongoing doubts concerning where associated funding will come from.

Egypt suspended its energy reactor plans in the wake of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. The program was revived in late 2006 and 2007 when the government announced plans for a three-to-four reactor program, with the first to be operational within 10 years.

With the country facing a major electricity generation deficit in coming years, the chair of the Egyptian Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed al-Qollali, believes that up to external page20 percent of the country's energy needs could ultimately be met by nuclear power.

However, serious obstacles remain.

Changing horses

The initial September 2006 announcement of the civil nuclear energy program's resumption was followed by a two-year hiatus in which the future of the project appeared to hang in the balance.

In the first genuine sign of progress, US company Bechtel Construction won the tender for consultancy services for the country's first energy reactor on 22 December 2008.

This tentative deal quickly collapsed in an apparent dispute over money. Bechtel was subsequently replaced by the company that came second in the tender, Australia's WorleyParsons, in June.

WorleyParsons has been external pagetasked with plant site and technology selection, organizing tenders for construction and procurement contracts and overseeing the development of the country's first nuclear energy plant, with 1,200MW in generating capacity, under a LE900 million (US$160 million) contract. The Bechtel deal was external pagevalued at $180 million.

The contract reportedly includes stipulations mandating the company's role in the development of related education programs at Egyptian tertiary institutions, designed to make up for what is a serious shortfall of nuclear scientists, engineers and other potential plant workers.

The collapse of the Bechtel offer and reportedly tough negotiations of the WorleyParsons agreement points to a crucial problem for the Egyptian program: the difficulty in finding adequate funding sources for what is a multi-billion dollar undertaking.

"No matter how much they think it is going to cost, cases around the world show the true cost will go up by even 300 percent. The workforce will be mostly imported while solar energy will cost less and give jobs to locals," Greenpeace Mediterranean's Nuclear and Disarmament campaigner, Sharon Dolev, told ISN Security Watch.

Enrichment work?

As Egypt looks to push ahead with reactor planning, doubts are again being raised concerning past nuclear research work.

It was reported in May that external pageIAEA inspectors had found minute traces of highly enriched uranium (HEU) near the Inshas nuclear research facility, which houses two small reactors, in environmental swipe samples taken in 2007 and 2008.

The fact that the swipes were positive for both HEU and low enriched uranium (LEU), rather than merely the LEU created in nuclear fuel fabrication, appears indicative of research work with a potential military purpose.

Unlike Iran, Egypt does not currently have an autonomous enrichment capacity, meaning that the planned reactors will almost certainly initially rely on nuclear fuel imports. Egyptian officials have indicated that this will be the case, while showing less commitment than the UAE to eschewing future enrichment or reprocessing work in civil nuclear development.

Egyptian officials told the IAEA that the HEU traces may have come from contaminated radio-isotope transport containers used to ferry uranium to the site. IAEA investigations continue; while the agency's report noted that there is no reason to disbelieve the Egyptian assertion.

The IAEA has found details in the past of external pageconducting uranium enrichment tests, of potential utility in weaponisation, and of the failure to disclose nuclear materials. These violations of NPT commitments to program openness were not viewed as presenting a proliferation threat.

Egypt announced in December 2007 that it was refusing to sign an Additional Protocol to its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty commitment, preventing the introduction of a more extensive and intrusive inspections regime involving snap inspections of both declared and suspected nuclear sites and facilities.

Site contest

Probably the key decision that will be taken by WorleyParsons is recommending a site for Egypt's first energy reactor plant.

While five sites are reportedly being studied, it is clear that the long-term favorite, al-Dabaa, situated 100km west of Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast, remains at the forefront of planners' minds.

The Egyptian government reportedly undertook around LE500 million of preparatory work at the site in the early 1980s.

The current imbroglio over the future of the area signals that the site remains such a clear favorite that its potential utilization for tourist resorts could signal the likely suspension of the Egyptian reactor program.

There is reportedly a major dispute within the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) over the use of the site.

Al Ahram reports that supporters of the nuclear program recently external pageappealed directly to President Hosni Mubarak to stop politically influential business interests from scuppering the use of the site for a nuclear plant.

Nuclear politics

The furor over al-Dabaa is a reminder that, despite Egypt's very real energy needs, the decision to revive the civil reactor program is essentially political, with both regional and domestic factors at play.

Egypt is likely to come under increasing pressure through the progressive development of the Iranian program, which exacerbates the perceived diminution of Egypt's regional standing in recent years.

Should it be demonstrated that Iran is moving towards a nuclear weapons capacity, this pressure to respond through speeding the long-term development of an autonomous enrichment or reprocessing capacity, that could allow future weaponisation, would be tremendous.

"There is no such thing as a nuclear reactor that does not bring closer the capacity for weaponisation," Dolev said.

"As we can see from Iran's civil nuclear program the existence of any nuclear program in a region that suffers from mutual mistrust significantly raises tensions," she said.

The possibility of future weaponisation remains a long way off, and indeed may never occur, but has been one of the key factors motivating unstated US opposition to Egyptian nuclear development in the past - which has reportedly come external pagedespite ostensible support for Egypt's right to civil nuclear development.

Domestically, the revival of the civil nuclear project has been tied to the perceived leadership aspirations of President Hosni Mubarak's son, Gamal.

The younger Mubarak heads the NDP's powerful Policy Committee and is widely tipped to take over from his father. In an apparent effort to bolster his leadership credentials, it was Gamal who announced the country's reactor plans in September 2006.

Once his succession is secured, or an alternative candidate assumes the presidency, it may well become easier to drop what is a profoundly expensive development project for Egypt and the NDP. The government is struggling to fund its social contract with the wider populace, in the face of neo-liberal economic reforms - also closely associated with Gamal Mubarak and his coterie.

In this sense, WorleyParsons' recommendations for future reactor development, will only constitute a preliminary move in the political, diplomatic and economic battle for an Egyptian civil nuclear capacity.

JavaScript has been disabled in your browser