Kuwait Times

Published Date: January 21, 2009
By Ben Garcia

KUWAIT: Since 1950s, the world has been seriously mulling over resorting to nuclear energy as an alternative to sky-high prices of fossil fuel and the slowly dwindling oil reserves. Many countries in the world use nuclear energy. However, the Chernobyl explosion of the 1980s many countries reconsidered the idea and some abandoned it completely. The Middle East countries, though, will soon join the nuclear fraternity. In an exclusive interview with the Kuwait Times, Dr Hassan Shaaban, Nuclear Engineer and
Professor Emeritus of Metallurgy at Atomic Energy Authority in Egypt, explains that the need for nuclear energy is very apparent.

Atomic energy has a negative connotation ever since it was first used by the US against Japan in 1945 and proved very destructive. The rest was history but the necessity of turning to nuclear energy has become crystal clear now," he said.
Countries like Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are now vying for nuclear energy. There are around 600 nuclear power facilities in the world today. According to Dr Shaaban, the largest numbers (of facilities) are concentrated in the United States. Japan is next but there are couple of nuclear reactors in Europe, one in Africa, but not even one in the Middle East.

I think very soon, the Middle East will have one, maybe three. As we have seen, nuclear energy complements the by-products of oil. The fact is that fossil fuel is steadily running out," he said.

We can use nuclear energy as an alternative to fossil fuel to generate electricity in a non-destructive manner. We can use the same atomic bomb materials treated in specific reactors and produce energy gradually, instead of burning petroleum or coal and converting it to electricity. Twenty five percentage of energy in the world today is generated from nuclear facilities. A small reactor can light up one country without using any petroleum products. That is extremely beneficial" he said.

The website created by the Energy Information Administration has explained that nuclear energy is energy in the nucleus (core) of an atom. Atoms are tiny particles that make up every object in the universe. There is enormous energy in the bonds that hold atoms together. Nuclear energy can be used to make electricity. But first, the energy must be released. It can be released from atoms in two ways: nuclear fusion and nuclear fission.

Energy is life. Societies in the world today survive because of energy. If we run out of energy, it will be chaos. It will be great disaster. So we need energy to survive. Until now, we were heavily dependent on fossil fuel, the question is what if the fossil fuel runs out, do we have an alternative? Nuclear Energy is one of the alternatives, not just the cheapest and cleanest. It will considerably reduce too much dependency on fossil fuel," pointed Dr Shabban.

Dr Shaaban admitted that politics and other issues surrounding its reliability, safety are holding countries in the Middle East and even other nations to opt for nuclear energy. "Of course, we cannot blame oil exporting countries for slowly accepting the idea of using nuclear energy. It's a real treat for their businesses but also involves politics. Iran, for example, is slowly building nuclear facilities but unless they come clear about their intentions we cannot blame the US and other European countries
to continuously doubt the purpose behind their nuclear ambition," he said.

Dr Shabaan made it clear that he was not speaking on behalf of his government. He emphasized that Iran should state its purpose clearly to the international community.

I think Iran should answer these questions; do you really need a nuclear energy without military goals? If Iran fails to prove it, then there is a problem. Remember that Iran was not a signatory to international agreement on non-proliferation treaty. Full cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency is a requirement though I think they have failed to cooperate. They should be able to prove that they are not building nuclear facilities for military purposes but for the sake of developing nuclear
energy facilities," he reiterated.

Dr Shaaban is a professor Emeritus of Metallurgy at the Atomic Energy Authority of Egypt. Besides being Atomic Engineer, Dr Shaaban also dedicated most of his time in Metallurgy, a branch of science which studies physical and chemical behavior of all metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds and their mixtures. Dr Shaaban has written two books on atomic energy and proud of his more than 70 publications of research/studies published in science journals all over the world. He is currently holding a p
osition as vice president for technical affairs for Gekash Company for inspection and consultation.

He received the highest form of recognition from the International Who's Who Historical Society for the year 2008-2009. He is currently in Kuwait to speak during a seminar held for the management and employees of oil and petroleum industries here. He will deliver a lecture on advanced machinery failure analysis, prevention, reliability assessment and life-cycle cost.