CAIRO, Sept 25: Egypt is to relaunch its civil nuclear energy program after a 20-year freeze, with plans for a nuclear power station on the Mediterranean coast, officials said Sunday.

The government’s Supreme Council for Energy met on Sunday for the first time in 18 years to discuss alternative energy sources, including the nuclear option.

“The meeting decided to immediately begin studying a nuclear alternative in the light of increased need in Egypt,” cabinet spokesman Magdi Radi told MENA, the official news agency.

“The rate of consumption has surpassed the rate of development, and alternatives from other energy sources... are limited while the nuclear option has spread in the world as a result of an increase in safety,” Mr Radi said.

On Thursday, President Hosni Mubarak told delegates at the closing session of his annual party conference that Egypt needed to begin looking into nuclear energy.

“We must benefit from sources of new and renewable energy, including peaceful uses of nuclear energy,” he said.

“The future of energy is a central element in the building of the nation’s own future.”

On Sunday, Egypt’s minister of electricity, Hassan Yunes, told the state-owned Al-Ahram daily that his country would have an operational power plant within 10 years of the project’s approval.

Egypt will build a 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plant at Al-Dabaa, on the Mediterranean coast, at a cost ranging between 1.5 and two billion dollars, Mr Yunes told the newspaper.

He also said that Egypt would negotiate with foreign organisations over funding for the project.

Egypt’s nuclear program was frozen in 1986 following the accident at the Chernobyl power plant in what was then the Soviet Union.—AFP