A senior KAPP official announced: “With great pleasure, this is to inform you that our first indigenous 700 MWe Unit, KAPP-3, has become commercial on June 30, 2023, at 1000 Hrs.”
According to him, the unit is currently running at 90% of its maximum power. At Kakrapar, which already has two 220 MW power plants, the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) is constructing two 700 MW pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs).

Numerous commissioning activities were under place at KAPP 4, which, according to officials, had made 96.92 percent progress by the end of May. The NPCIL has given financial and administrative approval for the construction of sixteen 700 MW PHWRs around the nation.

At Rawatbhata in Rajasthan (RAPS 7 and 8) and Gorakhpur in Haryana (GHAVP 1 and 2), 700 MW nuclear power plants are being built.

The construction of 10 locally produced PHWRs in fleet mode has been approved by the government for four locations: Gorakhpur in Haryana, Chutka in Madhya Pradesh, Mahi Banswara in Rajasthan, and Kaiga in Karnataka.

The Barakah nuclear power plant in Abu Dhabi, a major oil producer, is being built by Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO). The plant was originally due to open in 2017 but start-up of its first reactor was repeatedly delayed.

ENEC said its subsidiary Nawah Energy Company “has successfully started up Unit 1 of the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant, located in the Al Dhafrah Region of Abu Dhabi.”

The ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, wrote on Twitter that nuclear fuel had been loaded into the first of four units of what he called “the first peaceful nuclear energy reactor in the Arab world.”

“We are now another step closer to achieving our goal of supplying up to a quarter of our nation’s electricity needs and powering its future growth with safe, reliable, and emissions-free electricity,” ENEC’s chief executive Mohamed Ibrahim al-Hammadi said.

The Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (FANR), which issued an operating licence for the plant in February, said Nawah met all regulatory requirements to start operations, after regular inspections and oversight to ensure the plant’s safety.

When completed Barakah will have four reactors with 5,600 megawatts (MW) capacity. The UAE has not disclosed the total planned investment in the project.

The Barakah nuclear power plant in Abu Dhabi, a major oil producer, is being built by Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO). The plant was originally due to open in 2017 but start-up of its first reactor was repeatedly delayed.

ENEC said its subsidiary Nawah Energy Company “has successfully started up Unit 1 of the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant, located in the Al Dhafrah Region of Abu Dhabi.”

The ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, wrote on Twitter that nuclear fuel had been loaded into the first of four units of what he called “the first peaceful nuclear energy reactor in the Arab world.”

“We are now another step closer to achieving our goal of supplying up to a quarter of our nation’s electricity needs and powering its future growth with safe, reliable, and emissions-free electricity,” ENEC’s chief executive Mohamed Ibrahim al-Hammadi said.

The Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (FANR), which issued an operating licence for the plant in February, said Nawah met all regulatory requirements to start operations, after regular inspections and oversight to ensure the plant’s safety.

When completed Barakah will have four reactors with 5,600 megawatts (MW) capacity. The UAE has not disclosed the total planned investment in the project.

Zarif said: “We will not let the IAA turn into a tool in Trump’s hands to destroy JCPOA.”

A resolution presented at the International Atomic Agency (IAA) by Germany, France, and England was eventually passed on June 19, 2020, enjoying a good majority of the votes. (25 countries, aye; 7 abstentions; Russia and China, nay; and Paraguay was absent). The resolution calls on the Iranian regime to give access to two of its atomic sites to IAA’s inspectors.

Iran is suspected of having been carrying out nuclear activities at these two sites in the 2000s in order to obtain nuclear weapons.

Tehran horrified by the thought of the outcome of such a resolution tried to prevent its approval by any means; both carrots and sticks.

IAEA is unable to visit the nuclear suspected military sites in Iran  

More evidence of a change of course by the Europeans towards the Iranian regime is a statement made by the same three nations which underline the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. 

It reads in part: “We believe that revocation of the arms embargo against Iran in October will provoke complications in the security and stability of the region. We remind that the EU’s sanctions on (Iran’s) conventional weaponry and (its) missile technology will stay put till 2023.”

At a conference last week at the office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in Washington D.C., the former deputy of the IAA and former head of the agency’s inspectors in Iran, Olli Heinonen, being well familiar with the Iranian regime’s covert projects and how it whitewashes them, stated: “The Iran regime has not only increased the number of IR2 and IR4 centrifuges but has also produced a ton of 4.5% enriched Uranium. This amount, if enriched up to 90%, is enough for producing one atomic bomb.”

Early reactions and positions were taken by the Iranian regime’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, and the regime’s representative in Vienna, Gharib-Abadi, points to this regime being bewildered and weakened by its political dead-end.

Zarif said: “We will not let the IAA turn into a tool in Trump’s hands to destroy JCPOA.”

Kazem Gharib-Abadi called the resolution “deeply disappointing” and said the issue of inspection is “vague and worrisome”. This representative threatened that this resolution “neither incites us to give access to IAA nor puts any pressure on us.”

Tehran, predicting the resolution’s agreement had accused the US of pursuing its ratification with the intention of inducing the IAA’s Governing Council to follow US policy, even though it had left the JCPOA. In that way, Tehran wanted to prevent the inspection of its suspicious sites.

Meanwhile, a massive explosion occurred at the village of Parchin, the site of an Iranian military complex located about 30 kilometers (19 miles) southeast of Tehran, at around 00:30 a.m. local time on Friday, June 26, 2020. However, Brigadier General Davoud Abdi, , the Director-General of public relations of the Iranian regime’s Ministry of Defense and Logistics said the explosion at Parchin “public area” was the result of a natural gas tank blast.

 NCRI statement said: the claim by Davoud Abadi is a sheer lie. Eyewitnesses in Hamamk and the village of Nik, who is the closest to the area from the eastern side of the point of the explosion, said the reality and what they witnessed contradict this claim. Specifically, most of the windows of homes in the neighboring villages were shattered, and older walls suffered cracks.

A number of the residents were killed or wounded, and the Red Crescent went to the location to help. The traffic created by ambulances and firefighters going from Tehran to Pakdasht and the ban on residents of Hamamk and Nik to leave the area all has to do with the explosion. Helicopters have been hovering above the zone of the blast since this morning.

The massive explosion took place in the section designated for the production of ammunition, in particular warheads for ballistic missiles.

Parchin complex is comprised of dozens of military factories and hundreds of warehouses and storage buildings. Besides, it includes dozens of tunnels and underground facilities.

To end this, as the appeasement policy is now a defeated one and as a result, Tehran is internationally isolated, it has to yield to this resolution otherwise it will have to face great international consequences, the most important and imminent one being continuation of the arms embargo.

Entangled as it is in critical economic conditions and the lethal coronavirus catastrophe, Tehran tries to control an explosive society with suppression. The Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, wasting all the privileges that JCPOA had for him in exporting terrorism, warmongering, and suppression sees no light at the end of this tunnel.

He must now decide which international roadmap to take; permit the IAA inspectors to have access to these two sites or to face the continuation of the arms embargo.

The result of the recent session of the Governing Council is very influential in determining the next step that both the Iranian regime and the international community will take. Decisions that will lead to the continuation or abolition of the Iranian regime’s arms embargo at the UN Security Council.

Hassan Mahmoudi is a Europe-based social analyst, researcher, independent observer, and commentator of Middle Eastern and Iranian Politics. He tweets under @hassan_mahmou1. 

Featured Image Source: theBulletin.org.

Faced with surging energy demand for economic growth, Saudi Arabia is turning to nuclear power to diversify its electricity-generating mix and therefore reduce its reliance on fossil fuels. The Kingdom plans to build two large nuclear power reactors as part of a program of delivering as many as 16 nuclear power plants over the next 20 to 25 years at a cost of more than $80 billion. It has projected 17 gigawatts (GW) of nuclear capacity by 2032 to provide 15 percent of the power then, along with more than 40 GW of solar capacity. Plans for small reactors for desalination are also well advanced.

Hamid Al-Saqqaf, director of independent production projects at Saudi Electricity Company, points out: “Introducing nuclear power into the national energy mix is a sovereign decision in every country, according to its needs. In Saudi Arabia, this decision was already made in advance. The Kingdom has a continuously elevating demand on electricity.

“In 2015, we had about 62,000 megawatts in demand, and even though there currently seems to be a decrease in the amount of load, yet the growing demand for energy requires the introduction of nuclear energy as a means to achieve the base-load. As you might know, the operating costs for nuclear power is much less than the one produced from fossil fuel. The console of nuclear fuel produces more energy and at a lower price.”

The move toward nuclear power falls in line with the Kingdom’s Vision 2030, in which diversification of economy and energy from hydrocarbons is implied.

In 2010, a Saudi royal decree said that the development of atomic energy was essential to meet the Kingdom’s growing requirements for energy. Saudi Arabia is currently in the process of selecting a company for the construction of the first nuclear power plant in the country. There are five finalists from five countries — the US, China, Russia, France and South Korea — that the Kingdom invited last year to bid on a project to build the two units. A preferred bidder in the competitive dialogue is expected to be chosen in 2019.

Rosatom plans to outfit the Saudi nuclear power plant (NPP) project with the world’s first operational Generation 3+ reactor technology, known as the VVER-1200. The reactor is known for the most advanced safety systems, which fully complies with international security standards and post-Fukusima safety requirements.

As a part of its integrated offer, Rosatom is ready to supply the Saudi nuclear power project with nuclear fuel throughout its operational lifetime and ensure decent level of Saudi industry involvement and complex human resource development, in addition to growing public acceptance of nuclear power. Nuclear power plant deployment is always very beneficial and, obviously, it will be so for Kingdom.

Nuclear power gives a boost for local economy enhancement by highly-qualified personnel development and gains new competences to local industry, previously focused mainly on the fossil fuel sector.

Russia is the pioneer in peaceful use of nuclear energy: the first commercial NPP went into operation in 1954. Strong with more than 70 years long expertise in this sphere, nowadays Russia is the world innovation leader in nuclear technologies and holds the first place for the largest portfolio of foreign construction projects (36 NPP Units in 12 countries as diverse as Finland and China, India and Hungary, Egypt and Bangladesh).

“In October 2017, Rosatom and King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy signed the Program for Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy. Due to investments into nuclear and based on the international expertise and decades-long innovation experience, Saudi Arabia will profit from the stable, clean and environmentally secure energy source at affordable tariffs,” commented Saeed Al-Shahrani, a Saudi expert in renewable energy.

Article first published on Saudi Gazette.

The seven strategic projects are in the fields of renewable energy, atomic energy, water desalination, genetic medicine and aircraft industry.

He also introduced a center  for the development of aircraft structures.