How The Arabs got the Bomb, and we learned to love it.

Put this one up there with - hard to believe, aliens and bigfoot.




Saudi Arabia announces nuclear centre




By Abeer Allam in Riyadh
April 18 2010 14:37
The Financial Times

Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil supplier, is set to establish a civilian nuclear and renewable energy centre to help meet increasing demand for power as the country pushes forward with economic expansion plans.

The official Saudi press agency said on Saturday that the new centre, the King Abdullah City for Nuclear and Renewable Energy, would be based in Riyadh and would be led by Hashim Abdullah Yamani, a former commerce and trade minister.

Although all discussions have focused upon civilian uses of the technology, analysts note that Saudis and the other Arab Gulf states do not want to lag further behind Iran and Israel in developing nuclear technologies.

The move positions the kingdom, the largest Arab economy, alongside Kuwait, Egypt, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, as Arab states seeking to develop nuclear energy for civilian use. On Friday, France and Kuwait signed a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement, and Paris is negotiating a similar agreement with Saudi Arabia. In December, the UAE announced a deal with Korea Energy Company to develop four reactors.

Although the kingdom possesses roughly a quarter of the world’s petroleum reserves, increasing domestic and global demand has prompted plans to spend $80bn in power-generation and transmission capacity over the next eight years to keep pace with industrial and desalination needs.

But the country’s officials are alarmed by increasing oil and gas consumption. Saudi Arabia burns 1.25m barrels of oil a day to meet domestic and industrial demand, according to the ministry of water and electricity.

Saudi Arabia “is witnessing sustained growth in demand for power and desalinated water due to high population growth and subsidised prices of water and power,” the news agency said on Saturday in announcing the new programme.

The government subsidises energy for domestic, industrial and agricultural use. Although the market price of oil averaged almost $70 a barrel last year and reached a record $147 in 2008, the government sells oil for domestic use at only $5 a barrel, says the ministry of water and electricity.

Aramco, the state oil company, has estimated that the kingdom spends about SR30bn ($8bn) on fuel subsidies a year.













Arabia