By Batir Wardam
Last Thursday witnessed a unique meeting between the Prime Minister of Jordan and a group of representatives from a wide spectrum of institutions, experts, activists, and local community members who oppose the controversial nuclear program in Jordan. The increasing scope and tone of opposing a program that has always been labeled with lack of transparency and contradictory information has pushed the government to a position where it needs to open up to the critics. 2014 may see a turn in the fate of the nuclear program, putting the necessary breaks in expenditures and decisions that have been going on for more than 7 years without proper monitoring and evaluation.
To make a long story short, there are five main reasons I think will push the nuclear program to its eventual end as a mirage ambition that has mislead the Jordanian public and, most sadly, its leaders for a long time.
1. Arrogant Management
Developing a sustainable, publicly-supported nuclear program requires the maximum transparency, modesty, and openness in management. In Jordan the exact opposite has been the case. Since its inception in 2005, the Jordanian Atomic Energy Commission (JEAC) has acted as a religious cult in its pursuit to force the state and public to accept the nuclear option. Officials at JAEC have claimed to possess the ultimate truth in nuclear sciences and management issues, and have tried to bully critics by linking the nuclear option to the highest levels of decision making in Jordan. Whenever critical voices emerged within JEAC, asking questions and debating decisions, they were expelled. Most of the scientists who have discovered the lack of transparency and continuing contradiction in JAEC were present in Thursday’s meeting, in hopes of opening discussion with a Prime Minister open to hearing the real story.
JAEC also wanted to destroy the credibility of their opponents by linking them to “external agents” who want to sabotage the “patriotic nuclear program”. The nuclear lobby has also been successful in eroding the capacity and strength of the Atomic Regulatory Commission, which is the regulatory body of the nuclear sector in Jordan. The Atomic Regulatory Commission has been selected by the government to be abolished, along with the 50-year-old Natural Resources Authority, in a very controversial law for public sector restructuring.
Even for experts and members of the public who happen to believe in the role of the nuclear option in the energy mix in Jordan, the current method of management is not transparent, alienating people against the program.
2. How much Uranium?
The main assumption used to push for the nuclear option is the proposed availability of “strategic amounts” of Uranium in Jordan. The figure that was paraded by JEAC reaches 70 million tonnes, which had been used by HM King Abdullah II in his autobiography book two years ago. Now, there are many question marks surrounding this figure. The first person to publicly declare that Uranium amounts and concentrations in Jordan are much less that what was proposed is Dr Nidal Zoubi, who was the Commissioner of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle in JEAC. His transparency cost him his job. In the past two years both AREZA and RioTinto, two of the biggest exploration and mining firms in the world, have withdrawn from Jordan due to the less than promising findings of Uranium concentrations. JEAC did not cave in, insisting that both companies made a big mistake in their methodologies, and that Uranium is present in commercially strategic amounts. This claim is based on a study by one scientist, a previous staff member in Rio Tinto, who examined a 1.0 square kilometer area only. If you want to believe that one scientist is more credible than two mega corporations who base their decision-making only on strategic outcomes be my guest, but I am personally not buying it.
3. Cost and Financing
JAEC has claimed that the cost of constructing the two reactors would $10 billion. Based on current market prices and current reactor projects, construction costs for the two proposed reactors 1000 MW are set to reach $20 billion. This cost is only for construction, and if we take into consideration the full cycle of a nuclear program including operation, maintenance, waste management, and decommissioning we can end up with a colossal amount that can never be met. JEAC’s agreement with the Russian firm Rosatom stipulates that the firm will cover 49% of the cost while Jordan will provide 51%. It is beyond any kind of logical thinking to envisage how a debt-stricken economy can provide this amount of cash. JEAC has been trying to get access to the social security money to finance the project. The social security management until now has resisted all political pressure and is not responding positively to this dangerous gamble with people’s pension money. There is no feasible source of financing that any serious plan can rely on at this stage.
4. Unproven Technology
JEAC’s propaganda states that Jordan’s nuclear facilities will be “very safe”, as they will belong to Generation III reactors. However, Jordan’s agreement with Rosatom entails the technology of the AES92 VVER1000 reactor–with the only model that has been commissioned in India being currently under construction and non-operational. Did they mean safety during construction? Nuclear safety is no joke, and it requires ultimate commitment to the safety guidelines of the International Atomic Energy Agency which, if implemented, will consume huge amounts of money that will also increase the cost of the project. This technology is still experimental and it does not give us a lot of relief to be the guinea pigs of this experiment.
5. Water Resources
This issue is the final bullet that will lay the project to eternal rest. The chaotic sequence of selecting the location of the reactors led us now to the heart of the Jordanian desert, near the historic Qusay Amra area. The reactors should use, according to declared plans, no more than 40 MCM of cooling water each. Even if we assume the ability to allocate this water from the treated wastewater effluent of Khirbet As Samra, the largest WWTP in Jordan, there is absolutely no additional source of water to deal with emergency situations. This poses an extremely high risk: a nuclear reactor in a desert, to be cooled by high salt content wastewater, one that is completely defenseless against any case of human error or natural disaster, and one that might reach a point of meltdown danger requiring huge amounts of cooling freshwater. There is a good reason why nuclear reactors are built adjacent to oceans and huge rivers.
Building a nuclear reactor in a desert cooled by waste water is a fairy tale; it will cost a lot of money to realize how irrational the project is.
These are my five reasons, and I have not even touched upon the need to collect and treat radioactive waste. Even for the most pragmatic, reasonable person with a critical mind, the nuclear reactor in Jordan can only be built in Aqaba near seawater. How much will we lose until we realize this simple fact?
Above Image: The proposed location of Jordan’s nuclear reactor
For the Arabic version of this post, click here.