Excellent… A wonderful idea! TGO
Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press
JERUSALEM – Israel wants to build a nuclear power plant, Israeli officials said Tuesday, a move that could bring new attention to the country’s secretive nuclear activities.
Israel’s national infrastructure minister, Uzi Landau, was to publicly announce the idea Tuesday at an international nuclear energy conference in Paris.
“Building a nuclear reactor to produce electricity will allow Israel to achieve energy independence and end its dependence on others,” Landau said in a statement. “Nuclear technology has many applications that can serve the goal of peace and cooperation.”
Israel currently uses coal and natural gas to produce electricity.
Landau met several months ago with the French minister in charge of energy, Jean-Louis Borloo, and raised the idea of French-Israeli-Jordanian cooperation in developing a nuclear power plant. The French minister was enthusiastic about the idea, Landau said.
It was France which, beginning in the 1950s, helped Israel build its nuclear reactor at Dimona. Israel is believed to have used that reactor to construct a stockpile of nuclear weapons.
Israel has never acknowledged being a nuclear power, following a policy it calls “nuclear ambiguity.”
Israel also has a smaller nuclear reactor for research at Nahal Soreq, not far from the country’s population center in Tel Aviv.
Landau’s office says no specific plans to set up a third nuclear power plant have been drawn up so far.
The construction of a nuclear reactor could draw international attention to Israel’s nuclear activities. Asked if Israel would allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to supervise any new project, Chen Ben Lulu, an aide to Landau, said only that Israel would follow all the relevant rules.
Israel has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which aims to limit the number of countries capable of developing nuclear weapons.
The idea of generating nuclear energy has been floating around for years. In 2007, one of Landau’s predecessors in the National Infrastructure Ministry, Binyamin Ben Eliezer, said he was working on a plan to build a nuclear power plant in Israel’s southern Negev desert.
