LONDON: The Middle East is looking to nuclear energy as the only way to power booming economies short of burning precious oil and gas reserves.

Nuclear energy is enjoying a renaissance the world over as its green credentials and promise of secure supplies help to overcome worries about its safety.

“Nuclear is a very attractive energy source,” said Luis Echavarri, director general of the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency.

“Nuclear has demonstrated it is able to produce massive amounts of electricity without emitting CO2.”

But many in the West are reluctant to see Middle Eastern oil powers, especially Iran, seize on the energy source because it can be used to make atom bombs.

“They argue that they need oil and gas for foreign currency and they don’t want to squander it, but nuclear inevitably produces plutonium that can be used in nuclear weapons. You have to suspect that a number of countries want nuclear weapons,” said said Frank Barnaby of the Oxford Research Centre.

He also disputed nuclear power’s green credentials.

“If you take into account the nuclear cycle, mining uranium etc and decommissioning the waste, then it’s not carbon-free.”

Locked in a dispute with the West over its nuclear ambitions, Iran is the most controversial of the Middle Eastern oil powers to say escalating domestic energy needs mean it could run out of hydrocarbons unless it can develop nuclear power.

“Our energy consumption is growing seven per cent every year. We need nuclear and renewables. Otherwise, we could become like Indonesia,” said an Iranian oil official, referring to the only net importer of oil in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Others in the region also face annual growth in energy consumption of more than 6 percent, compared with less than three per cent in Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, analysts say.

Even if they have plenty of oil, their gas supplies are under strain. Ironically, high oil prices that have driven economic booms have helped to boost domestic gas demand for producing electricity.

“While the perception is that the Middle East is awash with gas, in reality, with the exception of Iran and Qatar, almost all the major countries in the Middle East have issues over future gas supply,” said Rajnish Goswami, vice president of gas and power at Wood Mackenzie.“Many countries in the Middle East are looking for alternatives to gas-fired power generation.”

DECADES AWAY: While nuclear energy is already established elsewhere, for most countries in the Middle East, the big problem is the length of time it will take to develop the necessary technology.

The notable exception is Iran, where work is well advanced at the southwest port city of Bushehr.

Other Middle East and North African oil and gas producers are decades away from nuclear capability.

“We need to develop nuclear power plants in the long term,” said Algerian Energy and Mines Minister Chakib Khelil. “We are looking to build a nuclear plant by the next 25 years.”

Before that, he said the country was developing alternatives like solar power, although most analysts say such alternative sources will be inadequate.

“It’s very difficult to conceive that the Middle East countries can utilise in a massive way renewable energy,” said Echavarri.

“They have fossil fuels at the moment ... In the short and medium term I don’t see any possibility of escaping from that.”—Reuters