Jordan close to commissioning two nuclear reactors, declines to sign accord with U.S.

[bananas]

Source: Financial Times

Jordan is close to commissioning two nuclear reactors, to be built about 100 kilometers south of the Syrian border, as atomic energy spreads through the Arab world, even as uprisings convulse the region.

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While it was unclear how the Jordan project would be financed, insiders said it was given impetus by seed funding drawn from a broad development aid grant given to Jordan by the UAE. A Jordanian nuclear delegation is visiting the UAE this week. Observers said the UAE government was keen to help Amman because it wanted access to the country’s atomic fuel reserves and technical expertise for its own project to build four nuclear reactors with a total 5.6-gigawatt capacity by 2020.

<snip>

Amman has declined to sign an accord with Washington that, like a similar document agreed between the UAE and the United States, would commit it to not enriching uranium as part of its nuclear plan.

<snip>

The United States has insisted that it will not allow Jordan to enrich uranium because of what it sees as the risk of proliferation in a volatile region made more insecure by conflict in Syria and growing tensions over Iran. Continued Jordanian resistance to U.S. wishes could cause problems with Congress and with Israel.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/jordan-close-to-commissioning-two-nuclear-reactors-declines-to-sign-accord-with-us/2013/03/06/82b99cf6-868e-11e2-98a3-b3db6b9ac586_story.html

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The Middle East is turning into a nuclear tinderbox.

Solar power has already reached grid parity in a number of countries,
there's no good reason for these reactors.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/03/03/1664481/solar-report-stunner-unsubsidized-grid-parity-has-been-reached-in-india-italy-with-more-countries-coming-in-2014/?mobile=nc

Solar Report Stunner: Unsubsidized ‘Grid Parity Has Been Reached In India’, Italy–With More Countries Coming in 2014

<snip>

[NNadir]

1. Every nuclear reactor that operates saves lives.

Fear and ignorance have prevented nuclear energy from doing what it might have done, which goes a real long way to describing why 2012 was the second worst year ever recorded for climate change, and why February 2013 was the worst February ever recorded in year to year increases in dangerous fossil fuel waste, 3.14 ppm over 2012.

Nuclear power has been operating for sixty years without being used in a single war. If the idiots who so hate the world's largest, by far source of climate change energy applied the same rhetoric to oil as they apply to nuclear energy, tens of millions of lives would have been saved.

How long has it been since the last time oil fueled weapons killed someone? Twenty minutes? Half an hour?

Humanity deserves what it is going to get, and the ridiculous and foolish fear mongering associated with nuclear energy has a lot to do with it.

The atmosphere is dying, the planet is dying. Heckuva job anti-nukes. You must be very, very, very, very, very, very, very proud.