The UAE has made an impressive start to securing its sustainable future. By building a nuclear power station, it will make a dramatic cut in how much gas it simply burns and destroys to generate power. Its valuable and limited resources of hydrocarbons can be better used while a four-unit nuclear power plant in Abu Dhabi’s Al Baraka region fulfils its important and strategic investment in a long-term future and provides about 25 per cent of the UAE’s future energy needs after it all comes on-stream by 2020.
The UAE is using this experience to pioneer a new approach to finding fuel, which is designed to allay any fear of misuse by refusing to use its right to enrich its own uranium. Instead, the UAE will buy its fuel from the open market and once the fuel is used, it will dispose of it through a new body to be set up by the International Atomic Energy Agency. This will prevent any suspicion of misconduct and the hope is that this “gold standard” can be followed by many countries around the world, thereby strengthening the security of the nuclear industry.
