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The capital of Jordan is the city of Amman. archive photo

Jordan wants to cooperate with Russia on small nuclear reactors

AMMAN, April 24 – RIA Novosti. Khaled Toukan, head of the Jordanian Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC), said Jordan is interested in building small nuclear reactors, is considering sampling from a number of countries, including Russia, and is waiting for the “green light” from the government to implement such projects. ), told RIA Novosti.

“We have chosen the path of creating small reactors, but we are exploring a range of possibilities, including Russian, Korean, French and British reactors,” Toukan said.

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The JAEC president said, “We’ve done all the work. We have the infrastructure, we have work on the site selection and the supply of cooling water. Now we are comparing the technologies and we want to get the green light from the government.” Degree of readiness for the project.

“There is the problem of supplying water for cooling and the problem of financing, we are examining these details with all well-known companies, including Russian companies, to choose the best option for Jordan,” he said.

According to Tukan, low-power reactors are planned to be used for water desalination and electricity generation. “Now – while it’s in operation – there is an opportunity to build a floating reactor, for example, in Aqaba. But neighboring countries may have concerns,” he said.

The JAEC chief also noted that in the next 10 years Jordan will not be ready to create large-capacity reactors – about 1,000 megawatts – and that the choice in favor of small reactors was justified by the problem of urgent water supplies for the country. . “The idea is that the water supply problem won’t be that severe firstly because it’s a small reactor that doesn’t require much water for cooling and shouldn’t be placed near large water sources like the sea or ocean,” he explained.

Tukan also reminded that the project to build a high-capacity nuclear power plant in Jordan with the participation of the state company Rosatom, which the parties agreed on in 2015, faces a number of technical and financial “challenges”. Among other things, it was about the insecurity of building a high-capacity nuclear power plant away from major water sources. “We said we were interested in low-power reactors… We didn’t say we wanted to replace two high-power reactors with two low-power reactors. We said we wanted to consider using small reactors in general, including the Russians,” he added.

Moscow and Amman agreed in 2015 to build the country’s first nuclear power plant in Jordan, consisting of two power units with a total capacity of 2,000 megawatts. The project cost was $10 billion. Initially, the first block of the nuclear power plant was scheduled to be put into service in the early 2020s.

At the end of May 2018, it became known that Jordan abandoned the construction project of a large-capacity nuclear power plant with the participation of Rosatom.

At the same time, Russia and Jordan signed an agreement on the development of a project for the construction of a low-power nuclear power unit (about 200 megawatts) on the territory of Jordan according to the Russian project. Options for continuing the suspended project to build a large-capacity nuclear power plant with the participation of the state company Rosatom are being studied.

In October 2019, the CEO of the state company Alexei Likhachev met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Jordanian King II. After the meeting with Abdullah, Russia announced that it expects Jordan to choose the parameters of a low-power nuclear power plant that this Middle Eastern country wants. to build at home.

Gleb Desyatnikov, the Russian Ambassador to Jordan, told RIA Novosti in February 2020 that cooperation in the nuclear field between the Russian Federation and Jordan is being discussed, and that joint work in this field will begin when new proposals emerge.

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Source: Ria

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