Saudi should develop their nuclear programme a.s.a.p. with T.O.T.
reasearch & development should alsobe carried out for next gen reactors as well as other technical fields.
The muslim world is in the right position to invest and build technical bases for the future and self reliance.
Rich arabs need to begin this change and become players in the technological field.
All those 16 nuclear reactors that are expected to be ready by the 2030's will be built by Saudi Arabians. So the required nuclear knowhow will be in the hands of locals. Of course foreign assistance will be involved/is involved like with any other nuclear state. Even the Americans relied on nuclear physicists from all across the world during the Manhattan Project.
Let me quote from the blog/article I posted from Financial Times;
"Publicly, Saudi Arabia denies any intention of developing nuclear weapons capability, but KA-CARE made clear that the country’s intention is to oversee a large proportion of the fuel cycle domestically from the outset and to be 65 per cent self reliant by 2032. Such an aspiration is valid under the terms of the Non Proliferation Treaty but will inevitably provoke scrutiny. The decision contrasts with the choice by the UAE — another state developing nuclear power capacity — to buy from outside rather than seeking a fuel cycle capability of its own."
UAE for instance is using a South Korean consortium to built the four commercial nuclear power reactors, total 5.6 GWe by 2020 at Barakah.
Construction has already started in two nuclear power plants.
All this is done too but it takes a lot of time to develop such complicated fields at such a short time span.
Look at KAUST, look at the other universities in KSA and their investments, look at all the dozens of new industrial cities that are planned to be built (biggest of their kind) and the 200.000 or so Saudi Arabian students that are studying abroad from USA to Japan.
Things are being done but it's not easy nor something that takes a few years.
It would be easier if we had 1.3 billion people to take from like China or India for instance or just 200 million like Pakistan but that's not the case.
