Are you telling this news is fake?
i thought it was true
It is accurate news.
KSA plans to built almost 20 nuclear power plants by 2030 and drilling for uranium in KSA (KSA is rumored/estimated to have one of the largest reserves of uranium in the world) is taking place while we speak.
https://mobile.sabq.org/nYgFcv
Earlier today a deal with Russia was signed. Not long ago with South Korea. KSA has signed memorandums of understanding with 5 + countries when it comes to nuclear energy.
Nuclear power is the most efficient way of extracting energy from a fuel source. It is about 8000 times more efficient than oil and coal. A fingertip sized pallet of nuclear fuel (highly enriched uranium) contains as much energy as 481 cubic meters of natural gas, 807 kilograms of coal or 564 liters of oil!
I am quite sure that there is tons of uranium ore below the surface in KSA. However it is a quite challenging process to dug or drill it out. It must be mixed with the surrounding minerals and processed.
The ore is first crushed and then heated to dry the carbon content like clay so it can be washed away. That slurry of ore and water is leeched with sulfuric acid. This process causes the uranium atoms to bond with the sulfur and oxygen forming the uranium oxide liquid. To get it to that yellow powder (appearance wise) the uranium is pulled out of solution using ammonia afterwards to be purified even more once put into barrels.
Afterwards the uranium must be enriched before it can be used for power generation. That yellow cake uranium is 99,3% uranium-238 and only 0,7% uranium-235. To make the nuclear fuel nuclear scientist need uranium-235 isotope (an atom that contains the right number of protons but different number of neutrons). This is where the famous nuclear centrifuges come in that enrich the uranium. This is the most dangerous (due to radiation) and complicated process.
Firstly the yellow cake uranium is turned into a gas by creating a reaction with fluorine. The resulting uranium hexafluoride gas is even more pure than yellow cake uranium and ready to go into a centrifuge (basically a giant spinning container) designed to use physics in order to separate materials. The center fleeing forces in the centrifuge cause the heavier isotopes to come out of solution and collect as far from the center of the centrifuge as possible. Thus the heavier uranium-238 isotopes get thrown outward allowing the lighter uranium-235 to stay closer to the middle of the centrifuge.
This spinning process has to be repeated 1000's of times in centrifuge after centrifuge. Eventually the gas in the middle of the centrifuge gets more and more concentrated (in other words enriched = the gas is more U-235).
Once the fuel is 5% U-235 and 95% U-238 it is suitable for some nuclear reactors. Others require as high as 20% U-235. However that is nowhere near enriched enough for nuclear weapons which can require as high as 90% U-235.
Once the desired enrichment levels for the type of nuclear power plant that you want to run are reached, the enriched uranium hexafluoride has to be turned back into a solid by adding calcium. The calcium and hexafluoride react creating a salt leaving behind only uranium oxide which is then heated to approximately 1400 degrees Celsius and extruded into tiny ceramic pellets. Those uranium pellets are in turn put into rods and then 100.000's of those rods can be placed in various configurations inside a nuclear power plant.
It requires a lot of technical and chemical knowledge to master but it is very much possible once you have mastered the nuclear energy process.
The 40 Saudi Arabian nuclear engineers that went to South Korea for training purposes are taught the initial process.
Sorry for sounding like a nerd but I am chemical engineer by profession and nuclear energy is a subject that I like to read about and occasionally study. Anyway what I quickly described is of course not a full account of the entire process. Nevertheless it can give an idea of the process.
Saudi Arabia to award nuclear reactor contract by end 2018 - official
Reuters Staff
RIYADH, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia plans to award a construction contract for its first nuclear reactors by the end of 2018, a senior government official said on Tuesday.
“With sponsorship from the highest levels in the state, the contract will be signed by the end of 2018,” Maher al Odan, the chief atomic energy officer of King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy, told a news conference in the capital Riyadh. (Reporting By Reem Shamseddine; Writing by Noah Browning; Editing by Gareth Jones)
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-wine-country-tourism-lifeblood-idUSKBN1CH34U
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-o-s/saudi-arabia.aspx
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_energy_in_Saudi_Arabia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Abdullah_City_for_Atomic_and_Renewable_Energy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_program_of_Saudi_Arabia
KSA will master the entire "nuclear energy process" as I mentioned above within less than 2 decades if not sooner. So it is not a question if but when. KSA will be like Japan and South Korea by then by all accounts. Nuclear weapons are old technology anyway. "Even" the likes of NK with outside help (granted) but hardly any economy can accomplish it. So no big deal really. The political aspect is the most challenging one which is why Rick Perry (Minister of Energy in the US) has been pressuring KSA to pick the US option (visited recently) and for KSA to sign the "123 agreement" which most regional countries have signed but KSA refused to do so. Very wisely.
http://middle-east-online.com/?id=263062
No coincidence that China is involved with the uranium drilling and that a deal was just signed with Russia.
In a few decades if everything goes according to the plan (God Willing), troublemakers out there to hurt KSA, will think more than they already do about such moronic ideas and once/if I ever will be involved in nuclear engineering in KSA, I will do my outmost to make this a reality as will 1000's of others.
