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First Nuclear Power Plant Planned In Jordan
jones_supa writes Jordan has signed an agreement with Russia's state-owned nuclear power giant Rosatom, that sets the legal basis for building the kingdom's first nuclear power plant with a total capacity of 2,000 MW. The agreement is worth $10 billion and it envisages the construction of a two-unit power plant at Amra in the north of the kingdom by 2022. The deal provides for a feasibility study, site evaluation process and an environmental impact assessment. Currently Jordan imports nearly 98% of its energy from oil products and crude and is struggling to meet electricity demand, which is growing by more than 7% annually due to a rising population and industrial expansion. The kingdom hopes that eventually nuclear power could provide almost 40% of its total electricity generating capacity.
According to Wikipedia, they are. Target of 500MW renewable energy, about 14% of total capacity, by the end of 2015.
Price per watt for solar is in the $5 range, not counting discounts for massive purchases.
But without moderately massive amounts of energy storage, a 2GW solar facility won't really do you all that much good.
Ultimately, this is about baseload as opposed to peak load. Solar can supply peak load, it doesn't do baseload nearly so well. Nuclear is the reverse.***
***caveat: it IS possible to design a nuclear power plant to handle large transients. Nuclear powered ships use such reactors. That particular type of reactor is, to say the least, uncommon for commercial plants.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
You can push for the design output, but only at the expense of maintenance, and there's a glowing lump in the Ukraine that demonstrates what happens then.
Chernobyl had nothing whatsoever to do with maintenance. It happened as the direct consequence of an ill conceived experiment, which deliberately bypassed safety protocols, with the added bonus that the experiment was moved at the last minute from the day-shift to the less experienced night-shift crew.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Not all plant designs require enriched Uranium. No idea if they're using it.
I don't read AC A human right
It depends if there's a production line for large components and a guaranteed market for future orders. The Chinese are rolling out 1GW reactors from breaking ground to grid connection over a period of about five years or so but they've got predictable orders of the large components needed for a reactor and teams of engineers who move from one site to the next as their particular tasks (pouring the basemat, building the containment, installing the reactor vessel etc.) on a given construction site are completed, they don't have to learn how to do it again from scratch every time. Rosatom is in the same position, building a number of reactors of similar design in Russia and around the world but also leveraging a turnkey operation capability, supplying fuel and taking away spent fuel for reprocessing and waste disposal which is very attractive to countries like Vietnam, Jordan and other Arab nations.
Ningde 3, a 1GW reactor on the central coast of China started construction with first concrete in January 2010 and achieved grid connection a couple of days ago, about 63 months later. Two more Chinese reactors of similar capacity are expected to come on line this year.