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Updated May 2003
Nuclear Facilities: Overview
Egypt can be described as a country with a well-established nuclear research infrastructure that is capable of exploiting most of what nuclear science has to offer. Although the Egyptian authorities believe that nuclear power should also be developed, they may lack the political capital to be able to go forward with the long-planned reactors in their country. Egypt's first nuclear reactor was a Soviet-built 2MW light water research reactor code named ETTR-1. ETTR-1 was constructed at the Inshas nuclear research center (NRC) in 1958 and went critical in 1961. In 1998, Argentina constructed a 22MW research reactor (ETTR-2) for Egypt at the Inshas NRC. ETTR-2 caused much concern among Western analysts, who feared that the reactor could provide Egypt with its first source of fissile material for a nuclear weapon. It is believed that in the 1960s, President Nasser commissioned a group of top-level scientists and policymakers to consider the means necessary to develop a nuclear weapons program. He did this to counter the growing belief that Israel had its own program. However, over the years, Egypt has refuted the notion that it has a weapons program. In 2002, Egypt once again began discussions with its allies, most notably Russia and China, to plan for a future nuclear power reactor at El-Debaa in Alexandria, near the Nile River.
Egypt's nuclear program essentially falls under the control of two government entities: the Egypt Atomic Energy Authority, sometimes called the Atomic Energy Authority (AEA), and the Nuclear Material Authority (NMA). The AEA was established in 1955 with the mandate to enable the country to effectively utilize the peaceful aspects of nuclear energy. Its scope ranges in research in the health, industrial, agricultural, mining, oil, hydrology, and environmental fields. The AEA employs over 800 scientists from various fields of nuclear science who are supported by at least 650 engineers and technical staff.
Under the AEA, the primary research centers are the Nuclear Research Center (NRC) at Inshas, National Centre for Radiation Research and Technology (NCRRT), Hot Laboratories & Waste Management Centre (HLMC), and National Centre for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Control (NCNRC). Of these, the NRC is the oldest and best established. NRC activities are directed at basic nuclear scientists, reactor applications, radioisotope production, medicine, industry, and agriculture. Included in some of these facilities are hot cells and glove boxes similar to the ones used to separate spent reactor fuel.
The NMA has exclusive responsibility for nuclear material in Egypt. NMA activities include the exploration, analysis, mining, refining, and distribution of uranium and related minerals. The NMA has been involved in a number of uranium exploration projects across Egypt. It has also established pilot projects to extract uranium from phosphate deposits across the country and from monazite that is found in the black sands of the Rosetta Beach on the banks of the Mediterranean.
This
material is produced independently for NTI by the James Martin Center for
Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and
does not necessarily reflect the opinions of and has not been independently
verified by NTI or its directors, officers, employees, agents. Copyright © 2008
by MIIS.
