Dr. Conca reports that energy officials in Saudi Arabia have announced plans to become a major nuclear energy state, assuring the reactors would be used only for peaceful purposes. They intend to move fast, beginning construction by year end.
The Saudi Royal Family hopes that nuclear will provide 15 per cent of the Kingdom power - 18 GWe - within 20 years, together with a similar 15 per cent- 40 GWe - from solar. They are planning to invest 80 billion US dollars to build over a dozen nuclear power plants as fast as possible, intending for the first reactor to come online in only eight years.
Investment in solar for the same energy production will take about 240 billion US dollars in investment, although breakthrough technologies in the next decade could cut that cost in half.
Energy consumption in Saudi Arabia is growing faster than any other country in the Middle East, and almost all of it is fueled by oil and natural gas. Total electricity consumption in Saudi Arabia exceeds 200 billion kWhs per year and is expected to double by 2030.
Americans are not generally aware that the two largest uses of power in the Middle East are for desalinating seawater and residential cooling. Saudi Arabia desalinates over 250 billion gallons of seawater each year, and that number will double in the next ten years as the population and industrialization increase.
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