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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
|---|---|
| Egypt unveils nuclear power plan | Egypt unveils nuclear power plan |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| Egypt is to revive the civilian nuclear power programme it froze 20 years ago following the accident at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine. | Egypt is to revive the civilian nuclear power programme it froze 20 years ago following the accident at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine. |
| Egypt's energy minister told the state-owned al-Ahram newspaper of plans to build a nuclear power station. | Egypt's energy minister told the state-owned al-Ahram newspaper of plans to build a nuclear power station. |
| The plant will be constructed at El-Dabaa, on the Mediterranean coast, within the next 10 years. | The plant will be constructed at El-Dabaa, on the Mediterranean coast, within the next 10 years. |
| Demand for electricity has been growing at an average rate of 7% a year and the country faces worsening shortages. | Demand for electricity has been growing at an average rate of 7% a year and the country faces worsening shortages. |
| On Thursday, President Hosni Mubarak said Egypt needed to investigate new sources of energy, including the nuclear option. | On Thursday, President Hosni Mubarak said Egypt needed to investigate new sources of energy, including the nuclear option. |
| Energy Minister Hassan Younes said that the project would create a fully functioning nuclear power plant within a decade. | Energy Minister Hassan Younes said that the project would create a fully functioning nuclear power plant within a decade. |
| The facility, a 1,000 megawatt nuclear power plant, is expected to cost an estimated US$1.5bn (1.17bn euros). The Cairo government says it will seek foreign investment for the project. | |
| IAEA questions | |
| Though it abandoned a serious nuclear energy programme two decades ago, Egypt maintains a small experimental nuclear reactor. | |
| In February 2005 the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) disclosed that it was investigating Egypt's nuclear activities. | |
| It concluded that Egypt had conducted atomic research, but that the research did not aim to develop nuclear weapons and did not include uranium enrichment. | |
| Egypt admitted to failing to disclose the full extent of its nuclear research activities to the UN's watchdog. Officials said the failure arose because of a misunderstanding over exactly what had to be disclosed. | |
| NPT signatory | |
| Egypt is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which allows countries to build nuclear power stations under international supervision. | |
| It has long pressed for a Middle East free of nuclear weapons. | |
| Israel is the only state in the region with a known nuclear arsenal, though it maintains a position of "ambiguity" on its nuclear weapons, insisting that it will not be the first state to introduce nuclear weapons to the region. | |
| Iran is in dispute with the IAEA and the Security Council over its nuclear programme. | |
| Tehran insists its programme is peaceful, but western states believe Iran secretly wants to develop either a nuclear bomb or the ability to make one. The Security Council is demanding that Tehran halt nuclear enrichment, a step Iran is refusing to comply with. |