RUSSIA Cairo and Moscow begin the second phase of the nuclear power plant works

Rosatom has received permission to continue the atomic project. The authorities granted authorization when security checks were completed. Operational tests in the next four years. At the Sharm El Sheikh Cop27 alarming figures are emerging on disasters caused by weather events in Asia, with damages in the billions.

Cairo () – With the collaboration of Moscow, which has long played the “nuclear card” to revitalize alliances in the Middle East and North Africa, Egypt is preparing to build the second unit of the Dabaa atomic power plant, five months after the first. The Russian state company Rosatom, responsible for the works of the first nuclear power plant in the country of the pharaohs, has received permits to start the next step of a project that Cairo considers strategic to meet its energy needs.

On October 31, the Board of Directors of the Egyptian Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Authority (ENRRA) gave the official go-ahead for the accelerator of the plant being built northwest of Cairo. At the same time, the authorization has also arrived from the Egyptian Nuclear Power Plant Authority (NPPA), which examined and obtained the corresponding guarantees for the safety of the plant and the construction process.

A note released by ENRRA explains that the necessary radiological measurements have been carried out to verify that the “maximum security levels” are respected for the El-Dabaa nuclear project in accordance with “the highest international standards”. The Authority carried out a series of on-site inspections and began the procedures for the construction of the base of what is called the “containment basin” with a depth of 4 meters, an essential part of the plant together with the security systems, the core, the generators and the compressor.

Ali Abdel Nabi, former deputy director of NPPA, tells al-Monitor that the containment basin is designed to withstand a magnitude 8 earthquake, plane crashes, floods and hurricanes. “It is prepared – he adds – to protect the station from any natural disaster, in order to avoid the release of radioactive materials into the environment.” The project includes the construction of four Russian VVER-1200 (AES-2006) units of pressurized water reactors (Pwr) with a capacity of 1,200 megawatts per unit, one of the most common reactors in the world. Once the pieces have been placed, adds the expert, “functional tests will be carried out, which could begin in the next four years.”

NPPA is the owner and CEO of the project and the main contractors are companies linked to Rosatom. The construction cost of the reactor is around 30 billion euros and “the granting of the permit to build the second unit – says Maher Aziz, a member of the World Energy Council – means that the program is going well and […] that so far the project is a success”.

Meanwhile, at the UN climate conference (COP27) that is being held from 6 to 18 this month in Sharm El Sheikh, alarming figures are known about the damage to the economy of Asian countries caused by droughts and phenomena extremes. In 2021 there was an increase of 63% compared to the previous twenty years; disasters caused by floods 23% and those caused by landslides and landslides 147%. According to data from the World Meteorological Organization, more than 100 natural disasters occurred on the continent last year, 80% of which were related to floods and storms, and at least 48.3 million people were affected by natural disasters. , with damages of more than 35,000 million euros. At the country level, in 2021 floods caused damage of 18,000 million euros in China, followed by India with 3,200 million and Thailand with about 600 million. The storms caused damage mainly in India (4.4 billion), China (3 billion) and Japan (2 billion).