Why Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, UAE and shouldn't have nuke power.

[NNadir]

They're Arabs, and so of course, being Arabs, they are obviously seeking nuclear weapons, not clean, safe, reliable energy. That's at least what one is lead to believe by this racist "news" story available from the Times on Line.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2436948,00.html

Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, UAE and Saudi Arabia seek atom technology


THE SPECTRE of a nuclear race in the Middle East was raised yesterday when six Arab states announced that they were embarking on programmes to master atomic technology.

The move, which follows the failure by the West to curb Iran’s controversial nuclear programme, could see a rapid spread of nuclear reactors in one of the world’s most unstable regions, stretching from the Gulf to the Levant and into North Africa.

The countries involved were named by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Saudi Arabia. Tunisia and the UAE have also shown interest.

All want to build civilian nuclear energy programmes, as they are permitted to under international law. But the sudden rush to nuclear power has raised suspicions that the real intention is to acquire nuclear technology which could be used for the first Arab atomic bomb.

One justification offered for the claim that Saudi Arabia should not be allowed to have nuclear reactors: Saudi Arabia has oil. Never mind that oil is a filthy fuel, that its use is threatening the continued existence of life on the planet, the Saudi's must use it to generate electricity. Why? Because they have it.

One wonders why the announcements of Polish, Romanian, Lithuania, Argentine, Brazilian, Vietnamese, Thai, Kazakh, Nigerian, and South African investigation of new nuclear capacity brings no such "news" article. One wonders whether the United States, which sits on huge reserves of coal, should not be forced to burn more coal.

Of course the technical stupidity associated with this article is hardly more comforting than the racial claim.

For my money, all nations, irrespective of their position with reserves of fossil fuels, should be going nuclear. Why? Because the safety of the planet depends on it.

Maybe the Saudi's read the information on the external cost of nuclear energy and, being rich enough to invest in any wise choice about energy, decided to invest.

No wonder the Arab world hates us. We treat them like children. We are such fucking assholes in the West.

If anyone wants to know why there are so many people who exhibit vast stupidity with respect to nuclear energy, the commentary of our "journalists" would be a good place to start.

One of the most respected thinkers in the world on the subject of nuclear power and nuclear non-proliferation, so respected that he has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, Mohammed El Baradei, is an Egyptian. No one named Mohammed anything apparently, in the mind of the Times reporter, should even be allowed to think the word "nuclear."

[OneBlueSky]

1. so why is it that the only country ever to have actually USED nukes . . .

is allowed to stockpile enough to blow up the planet many times over, yet smaller countries risk annihilation if they so much as think about developing them? . . .

[NNadir]

2. Good question. I would be the wrong person to ask.

I have no answer.

I have long advocated the running of 100% of all weapons grade actinides through a nuclear reactor for the purpose of their destruction/denaturing. I am also for the internationalization of the nuclear fuel cycle. The only path to total nuclear disarmament will involve internationalization of the nuclear fuel cycle.