Supply and demand of nuclear fuel in the Middle East : options and opportunities -

Abstract

Several countries in the Middle East (Turkey, Jordan, UAE, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt) have set serious plans to build nuclear power plants for electricity generation in the upcoming years. The nuclear capacity to be added in the region could be as high as 40 Gigawatt by 2040. These projections of nuclear power deployment in the region pose questions about the sources of nuclear fuel available and the security concerns associated with such a sensitive technology. This thesis proposes to study the options available for countries in the region to obtain the enriched uranium fuel. Since the process of enrichment is very costly and technically challenging to be done on a national level, special attention will be given to study the prospect of having a regional fuel bank from economic and security perspectives.