And What We Should do Instead
By Sherife AbdelMessih
If you live in Egypt, then you’ve heard about the nuclear agreement that was signed between Russia and Egypt this month, under which Russia will build and finance Egypt’s first nuclear power plant. Government officials spoke about a dream for Egyptians that was finally coming true, after being stuck in limbo for decades, but seeing the outburst on social media from many Egyptians, I wondered which Egyptians the government was talking about.
The signing ceremony was presented as a feat that will usher Egypt into the modern age of technology and civilization. This could have been true 40 years ago, but today it will be bringing Egypt backwards. Nuclear power is a World War Two technology. At the time countries were harnessing nuclear power because it was the only alternative to fossil fuels to many of them, but in 2015 the world has completely changed and the race among the advanced countries is not to develop nuclear power plants but rather who will lead the solar, wind, biofuels, electric vehicles, energy storage, and smart grid industries.
Today Nuclear power has become one of the most expensive energy sources. It takes longer to build than any other power plant and rarely makes any sense to build for a country that does not already possess nuclear infrastructure. Today, it is much more logical for Egypt to invest in alternative energy sources as opposed to nuclear technology. Here are 7 reasons why:
Nuclear power plants have both a very high upfront investment cost and a high lifetime cost over the course of the next decades. For the investment cost, they require a turnkey construction cost of more than $4 Billion per GW. In comparison, Solar PV power plants require around $1 Billion per GW. Given the increasing safety standards that are required for nuclear power plants, costs are constantly increasing and these projects are rarely done on budget. The chairman of one of the largest power utilities in America, once admitted to me that the last nuclear power plant he built cost him 3 times what he budgeted for.
Now with regards to lifetime cost, an industry term called Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) is what is used to compare costs of generation of different power plants. In simple layman’s terms LCOE is the lifetime cost of the power plant divided by the lifetime electricity generated by the power plant, which gives a unit cost in dollars per unit of energy or $/MWh. Nuclear power LCOE is around $150/MWh. That means a developer of such a plant has to sell electricity at a higher price than this to be profitable. So Egypt will be paying way more than $150/MWh to buy nuclear power from Russian company Rosatom, when in comparison it can buy electricity at a fraction of this price from wind power for example. The latest wind power auction in Egypt was awarded at a price of around $45/MWh.
A fact about Nuclear power that is often overlooked is the tremendous amount of water it requires to cool these power plants. Nuclear power plants are one of the thirstiest power plants in the world, the only other type that can challenge nuclear for that title is coal power plants. As an estimate a typical nuclear plant draws enough water into the system that could fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool every 3.5 minutes. The process also includes losses that add up to an equivalent of 3,000 Olympic pools annually. For a country that is already below the UN water poverty threshold, it does not make sense to meet our energy needs through sources that will further stress our water supplies. The UN predicts that by 2025 Egypt will be approaching a state of “absolute water crisis.”
The fastest nuclear power plant in the world took 5 years to construct and that is in countries that have built their third or fourth nuclear power plant. I don’t expect the nuclear power plant in Egypt to be completed before 7 years. It takes at least 2 years of project development and at least another 5 years of construction to complete a nuclear power plant. But if I were betting, I don’t think we will see an operational nuclear power plant in Egypt before 10 years or longer. In comparison, a similarly sized solar power plant would take only 1 year of project development and 1 year to construct.
When it comes to renewable energy power plants like solar and wind power, the fuel is free. However, when it comes to nuclear fuel, today’s spot price of U3O8, a compound of uranium known as yellow cake, is around $36/lb. That is up from $10/lb in 2002 and down from a ten-year high of $140/lb in 2007. So with nuclear we are really shifting from price volatility of oil to price volatility of uranium isotope. As a rule of thumb, every GW of nuclear power requires around 200 tones of uranium yellow cake per year.
Uranium will most likely be imported from TVEL in Russia or one of the top 3 global exporters like Kazakhstan, Australia or Canada. Instead of harnessing our local energy sources, building nuclear power plants will still make us dependent on energy imports, whereas solar and wind power plants require no fuel imports. Alternatively, we could develop more of our natural gas that is sitting underground.
A country with regular train accidents, weak security at airports and stadiums, and a shameful environmental record that has led to severe land, water and air pollution, should not be thinking about building a nuclear power plant. First the government needs to gain credibility with its people by improving its environmental safety record, only then can it ask its citizens to entrust it with the huge responsibility of making sure they are safe from any accident that can result in a nuclear power plant.
Removing, storing, and managing nuclear waste is a costly and risky process that requires constant vigilance and oversight - something that is especially important in the context of Egypt's security concerns. Moreover, Egypt falls in an area of high-seismic activity which immediately exposes us to an earthquake related disaster and conjure memories of the traumatic disasters at Fukushima and Chernobyl. These were horrific in scale and impact and have rendered large areas of land unlivable. Still these tragedies have left a legacy of radiation-induced illnesses and abnormalities, particularly in children. But these two instances are not even isolated incidents. Between slow leakages of radioactive material, lengthy emergency shutdowns, and meltdown due to overheating, Nuclear power plants have a long track-record of industrial incidents that highlight the world is never far away from the next nuclear catastrophe.
To add insult to injury, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that radioactive material was stolen from the El Dabaa site in 2012, where the power plant is being built on the North Coast. If someone makes a mistake, we might lose our beautiful north coast beaches for the next 200 years due to nuclear contamination. Are you ready to entrust anyone with this?
Egypt has no competitive advantage in nuclear, instead, it actually has many disadvantages. It’s going to be more expensive to build in Egypt because we don’t have a nuclear industry, and we will be reliant on foreign entities to build and operate technology that can’t be manufactured locally. The government’s goal for the local share of the nuclear power plant is 20%, which is mostly cement and steel..
With certain renewable technologies however, Egypt has many competitive advantages. Take solar for instance. The lifetime cost of a solar power plant in Egypt is one of the lowest in the world, because of the high solar irradiance in the country. All the major solar components can be manufactured locally, creating a whole new industry, jobs, and GDP growth. The local share of solar projects in Egypt can be more than 80% and we can build advanced local industries that can compete regionally and globally built on competitive advantage. We can’t do that with Nuclear. Imagine if the government puts the same energy it is putting into pursuing the nuclear power plant, into building a state of the art renewable energy cluster in Egypt. Now you see the opportunity cost of Nuclear presents.
As you can see from an energy perspective it does not make any sense to build nuclear in Egypt given there are much more competitive alternatives. In addition, nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants are two completely different scientific projects. Building a nuclear power plant does not get a nation closer to building a nuclear weapon. This comment was for any hawkish Egyptian republicans who welcomed the project as a step closer to developing nuclear weapons.
The lack of an engaged civil society in Egypt is what led to the government’s signature of the nuclear agreement without a public debate about the topic. This is also the cause behind many of Egypt’s main problems. The government will continue to do as it pleases until it is confronted by an engaged civil society that will utilize all civilized avenues to make its views known.
The Nuclear Agreement, the new Egyptian capital, the New Suez Canal, Coal imports, whether any of these is good for the country or not, whether you disagree with them or not, there is no question that Egyptians deserve to have a public debate about the pros and cons of these projects before a decision was made about them. If the government will not voluntarily give us this opportunity, then it is our responsibility to start the debate. Once we have made our opinion known as a society, the government can then either decide to change course, or maintain course knowing it’s going against the will of its citizens. In the event that this project turns out to be a failure later on, then officials that publicly defied the people will be held accountable.
In Italy a referendum was held in 2011 for the people to have their say on whether they accepted the government’s proposal to restart the nuclear program in Italy. 94% of the voters rejected nuclear power.
I urge you to cast your vote whether it is for or against the Egyptian nuclear program in the link below.
Let us build an active and engaged civil society in Egypt. We have done a lot to bring down regimes in Egypt, but we have done very little to build.