CAIRO - Many local and foreign readers of The Egyptian Gazette raised their eyebrows about the fact that an oil-rich country like the United Arab Emirates (UAE) would beat the odds and decide to construct nuclear power plants. The UAE will soon celebrate the completion of the first nuclear plants on the Arab peninsula, which floats in the world's largest oil lake. Apparently still haunted by the Fukushima accident, the perplexed readers also inquired why Arab countries, including Egypt, were still planning to go ahead in this regard. As for the UAE, it is a member of the GCC (Gulf Co-operation Council); its decision to construct nuclear power plants, in collaboration with the Korean Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO), must have been unanimously approved by GCC. It should, therefore, be no surprise if more nuclear plants were springing up in the Arab Gulf, since the GCC member states command a perfect location there. The electricity produced by the UAE's nuclear plants will be exported to different GCC members to help reduce their local oil consumption and also help the GCC preserve its oil reserves and reduce carbon dioxide emissions, which contribute substantially to the growing phenomenon of global warming. According to the US Department of Energy (DOE), the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions is generated by the production of electricity from fossil fuels. DOE estimated that electric power accounted for 41 per cent of these emissions. In the meantime, nuclear power has been proved to be the safest energy source at present – even safer than coal or natural gas, nor is nuclear power affected by fluctuating oil and gas prices. On the other hand, large-scale users of nuclear power are sufficient proof that this type of energy is safe. For example, approximately 75 per cent of France's energy requirements are met by nuclear power. According to the European Nuclear Society, nuclear energy currently accounts for almost a quarter of electricity produced in Europe and around 15 per cent of global output. Admittedly, there have been three major reactor accidents in the history of civil nuclear energy: Three Mile Island in 1979, Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011. According to the World Nuclear Association, these are the only major accidents that occurred in over 14,400 cumulative reactor years of commercial operation in 32 countries. Of all the accidents and incidents, however, only the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents resulted in bigger radiation doses affecting the public than those resulting from the exposure to natural resources. For example, the Fukushima accident led to the radiation exposure of workers at the plant, but it did not really threaten their health. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), set up by the United Nations in 1957 to monitor global nuclear safety, every country that operates nuclear plants has a nuclear safety inspectorate working closely with the IAEA. It must be said that while nuclear power plants are designed to be safe in their operation and safe in the event of any malfunction or accident, no industrial activity can be presented as completely risk-free. In this regard, incidents and accidents related to nuclear power plants, such as that of Fukushima, are definitely drawing the attention of scientists and operators of nuclear plants to progressive safety improvements as is the case in other industries. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) specifies that reactor designs must meet a 1 in 10,000 years core damage frequency, although the current designs go further. US utility requirements are 1 in 100,000 years and the best plants operating at present are about 1 in 1 million, while reactors likely to be built in the next decade will be almost 1 in 10 million. Regulatory requirements for new plants demand that the effects of any core-melting accident must be confined to the plant itself, without the need to evacuate residents in the vicinity. As for achieving optimal safety, nuclear plants in the Western world use multiple safety systems supplementing the natural fail-safe of the reactor core. Among these are high-quality design and construction, the use of equipment preventing operational disturbances or human failure and error from developing into problems, comprehensive efforts to monitor and regularly test for equipment or operator failures as well as provisions to confine the effects of severe fuel damage to the plant itself. In the meantime, nuclear power plants are equipped with sensors to shut them automatically down in an earthquake, a vital consideration in many parts of the world. In addition, all buildings with safety-related equipment are situated on sufficiently high platforms (that is why el-Dabaa near Mersa Matruh in Egypt is considered to be the perfect location for the country's nuclear power plants), so that they stand above submerged areas in case of flooding. As for terrorism, since the World Trade Centre attacks in New York of 9/11, there has been concern about the consequences of a large aircraft attacking a nuclear facility with the purpose of releasing radioactive materials. Various studies have looked at similar attacks on nuclear power plants; the results show that nuclear reactors are more resistant to such attacks than virtually any other civil installations.
