(Ahmad M. Ibrahim, Ph.D. (AEA-Scholars

Ahmad M. Ibrahim, Ph.D.

Association of Egyptian-American Scholars

Abstract:

Egypt’s energy sector is currently facing a variety of conflicting and overlapping challenges. Rising power demand, natural gas supply shortages, aging infrastructure, and inadequate generation and transmission capacity have led to frequent blackouts in Egypt. About 70% of Egypt’s electricity is fuel by natural gas, with the remainder being fuelled by petroleum and renewable energy (mostly hydroelectricity). Substantial natural gas discoveries in the deep water Mediterranean Sea and in other areas have been undeveloped because the price that the Egyptian government was willing to pay foreign operators for the natural gas was too low, making some investment projects commercially unviable. Egypt’s economy has not fully recovered science the 2011 revolution. The Egyptian government is implementing an energy subsidy reform to reduce spending. The high cost of energy subsides in Egypt has contributed to the country’s high budget deficit and the inability of the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC), the country’s national oil company, to pay off its debt to foreign operators. EGPC owes foreign oil and natural gas operators billions of dollars, which has led foreign operators to delay their investments in existing and new oil and natural gas projects.

It is possible to generate enormous amount of electrical energy from a single nuclear power plant. In fact, one nuclear site with two units can generate 50% more electricity than the Aswan dam. The use of nuclear energy for electricity generation can be considered extremely safe relative to the use of fossil fuel. Even the Fukushima accident has caused no deaths, while several thousand people die every year during the mining of fossil fuel. There are also significant health and environmental effects arising from fossil fuel use. More importantly, the theoretically- calculated frequency for a large release of radioactivity from a severe nuclear power plant accident has been significantly reduced between Generation II reactors like Fukushima and the Generation III/III+ plants being built today. The operation and fuel costs of electricity production from nuclear energy are very low. However, the overnight capital cost of new nuclear power plants is relatively high and has varied greatly in the last decades.

This presentation will discuss the importance of nuclear energy for securing Egypt’s future energy needs and for boosting its economy. It will discuss all the energy resources available to Egypt in terms of their availability, sustainability, and economic attractiveness. With the consideration of Egypt’s current economic challenges and the high overnight capital cost of new nuclear power plants, the viability of building nuclear power plants in Egypt will be discussed.

This article was published in 3alamaltanmya

sponsored by Future Builders International Academy

Led by Dr.Maha Fouad