Global Security Newswire

Saudi Arabia aims over the next two decades aims to construct 16 nuclear reactors with price tags of roughly $7 billion each, Arab News reported (see GSN, Feb. 23).

"After 10 years we will have the first two reactors," said Abdul Ghani bin Melaibari, scientific collaboration head with King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy. "After that, every year we will establish two, until we have 16 of them by 2030."

All countries are welcome to seek contracts for providing the systems, he said.

The Middle Eastern nation wants to meet one-fifth of its power demands using atomic generators, Melaibari added (Muhammad Humaidan, Arab News, June 1).

Riyadh has fought to satisfy the country's increasing electricity needs, according to Reuters. A number of Middle Eastern countries with significant petroleum resources remain interested in establishing atomic power capacities, even as governments elsewhere have reconsidered such initiatives following the disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant (see GSN, June 1; Sara Anabtawi, Reuters, June 1).