Russia and Jordan Sign Nuclear Cooperation Deal for Four New Power Plants
If you think your electricity bill is bad, you should see the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan’s. Having to import 95% of your energy makes for a fairly expensive monthly bill. In response to this ongoing electricity and energy challenge, Jordan has signed a 10 year agreement with Russia for the provision of four new nuclear power plants, desalination stations and related research facilities.
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“The signed agreement is the beginning of major strategic cooperation between the two countries. We intend to cooperate in the construction of nuclear power plants… and plan to build four plants in Jordan in the coming decades,” according to head of Russia’s Rosatom nuclear corporation Sergei Kiriyenko.
Jordanian Atomic Energy Commission chief Khaled Toukan told reporters
“We have started negotiations on various areas of cooperation, but the most important of them is the construction of a nuclear power plant for production of electric power, and of a desalination station.”
Part of the agreement also includes a uranium exploration partnership between the two countries. As Jordan looks to diversify its energy production, it will continue to sign further natural resource agreements, similar to its 2008 agreement to allow Shell to survey and develop nearly one quarter of Jordan in order to access about 40 billion tonnes of oil shale.
Image credit: mandj98 via Flickr, under a Creative Commons license.
While I do agree with the use of nuclear power for generation, I’m wondering why a place that has a lot of great solar would bother with Russian Nuclear in the first place… Look to what Spain is doing with Solar, Jordan should follow Spain.