Iraq

French nuclear reactors could solve Iraqi electricity problems

Article published on the 2009-02-22 Latest update 2009-02-22 14:37 TU

A French nuclear power plant in Tricastin.
(Photo : AFP)

More than six years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, 24-hour electricity still hasn’t been restored. Iraqi Electricity Minister Karim Wahid, whose country has the world’s third-largest oil reserves, made a plea Sunday for French nuclear investment, “because the future is nuclear”.

“I am willing to enter into contacts with the French nuclear agency and to start to build a nuclear power plant,” he said.

Iraq and France signed a nuclear power pact in 1976, and construction began on Iraq’s first nuclear power plant in 1979. But in June 1981, during the Iraq-Iran war, Israel bombed the incomplete plant, ostensibly to prevent former dictator Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons.

The nuclear waste released in this attack has still not been cleaned up.

Following decades of war, and terrorist attacks following the 2003 invasion, Iraq’s electricity grid is in tatters. Even in Baghdad, electricity service has not been restored to pre-invasion levels.

Security around power stations and transport lines has been reinforced, and there hasn’t been an attack on electricity infrastructure since June 2008, Wahid said.

Yet homes still typically receive only four to eight hours of power per day. Many people have invested in generators to supplement their electricity needs.

Wahid said that the now is the time to reinvest in the grid, and nuclear could play a role in Iraq’s future system. Despite holding some of the world’s largest oil reserves, slumping prices have put a hold in Iraq’s budget and pushed it to consider energy alternatives

Less than two weeks after French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited Baghdad, the minister complained that “France has not shown up yet [in post-Saddam Iraq]. They will come hopefully.”

“My coming here is to tell French companies: the time has come, come and invest,” Sarkozy told a press conference at the time.

Wahid also invited French investment. “We have many projects to be announced for investments,” singling out “power generation investment”.

This could be good news for France’s nuclear giant Areva, after January’s announcement that partner Seimens would be pulling out of the group.