Oil-Rich Saudi Arabia Is Turning to Nuclear Power | Hacker News Reader

Oil-Rich Saudi Arabia Is Turning to Nuclear Power

bloomberg.com

67 pointsrbanffy95 comments

"In an interview with the U.S. television network CBS aired in mid-March, Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince who effectively runs the country for his father King Salman, said, “Saudi Arabia doesn’t want to own a nuclear bomb. But without a doubt, if Iran develops a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible.”

So, this is basically India and Pakistan all over again, only with countries that are a lot more likely to back terrorists.

"The Trump administration, eager to revive the torpid American nuclear industry, is pushing Saudi Arabia to consider U.S. companies -- such as Westinghouse Electric Co. and Exelon Corp. -- for its nuclear contracts instead of competitors from Russia, China and other countries. "

Perhaps this is about money, or perhaps its about stirring the middle eastern pot. Threaten to give the Saudi's all the nuclear tech they want while deliberately ignoring what they do with it and you might just get Iran to end its own nuclear program if only the U.S. will put a stop to this. Or you might get a nuclear conflict.

This is probably going to go down in history as amazingly dumb. Canada is still a little embarrassed about India, but this will be much worse.

There's some interesting reading around this that essentially the Saudi's financed Pakistan's nukes in a deal where they can effectively get them under their control in no time should Iran develop one. Contracted out the development in a way :)

Iran is part of the problem, but the less-discussed issue remains Isreal's nukes. The race for nukes in the middle east started long ago. The saudis have just decided to start trying.

Aren’t Israeli nukes an open secret? As in they never acknowledge they have them, but pretty much everyone believes they do?

I don't think Israel considers them an open secret. Their existence is commonly assumed and Israel does little to dissuade the rumors, but we do not have specifics. No doubt they have the devices but we are not sure of their delivery methods or warhead sophistication.

> Their existence is commonly assumed and Israel does little to dissuade the rumors, but we do not have specifics. No doubt they have the devices

Just so you know, that's the definition of an open secret

Israel possesses a missile they call the Jericho. I wonder what it does to city walls.

Your post is pretending that China and Russia do not exist.

There is no scenario where Saudi Arabia doesn't get whatever nuclear power infrastructure they're after. Nothing will prevent that. China isn't going to have any problems building Saudi Arabia's nuclear power infrastructure, they'll be thrilled to do it. The same is true of Russia. There is nothing the US can reasonably do to stop China or Russia from building nuclear power plants in Saudi Arabia.

Ok, there's one exceptionally dumb broad option: war with the non-US supplier (eg China or Russia), or fundamentally destroy Saudi Arabia as we know it today and kill millions of people to shut down all industrial progress there to prevent any nation from ever attempting to build nuclear power there.

Here's the reality of the near future: you are going to have to accept a bunch of bad actors are going to have access to various nuclear technology. It's only going to spread faster and faster.

More likely than Pakistan to back terrorists? The current likelihood of Pakistan backing terrorists is 100%.

Maybe they meant more likely than the average of India and Pakistan.

Basically they're going nuclear because Iran is. Saudi Arabia burns about $5B of oil in the summer to fuel air conditioners and it would be easy enough to run a natgas pipeline into the country (most Saudi natgas is used in the petrochemical industry) but Saudi doesn't want to be a fossil fuel importer, too humiliating. None of it makes much sense, to be honest. The entire region is sitting on massive amounts of natgas or solar potential so there is no reason other than prestige or bombs to go nuclear.

Bombs. [1]

An acquaintance who works in the oil industry relocated to Saudi Arabia for the express purpose of developing their fracking industry. He said they were burning unrefined crude oil for power generation, and were pivoting to natural gas.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/15/middleeast/saudi-arabia-iran-...

They could just build solar to run their aircons. It's a perfect match.

Cheaper at scale in the long run too. Short of some unforeseen breakthroughs in non-typical nuclear like thorium.

It wouldn't be that unforeseen, there are a bunch of companies working on molten salt reactors and there don't appear to be any showstoppers. The main issue is getting regulators to wrap their heads around it, but Terrestrial Energy in Canada got through the first stage of regulatory approval last year [1], and ThorCon appears to be making good progress with Indonesia [2]. Moltex is pursuing licensing in Canada as well [3], and thinks it could have its first reactor online as early as 2026 [4]. Terrapower has been awarded $40M from the DOE for their work on a molten chloride fast reactor [5].

[1] https://www.terrestrialenergy.com/2017/11/terrestrial-energy...

[2] https://medium.com/@bobsoef/indonesia-is-preparing-to-go-nuc...

[3] http://moltexenergy.com/news/details.aspx?positionId=85

[4] http://moltexenergy.com/files/cms/7_Moltex_Energy_Press_Rele...

[5] http://terrapower.com/technologies/mcfr

I'm for guarded optimism here. The reality is that getting regulators to wrap their heads around it is a real cost. The public doesn't trust nuclear and these smaller ones don't produce medical isotopes, so regulators can't even fall back on saying grandma needs it. When the public says "why not solar?" the government should have a good answer. It makes sense in Canada (history of safe nuclear, large population base with knowledge in engineering, etc) but it doesn't make sense in Saudi Arabia short of nuclear arms capability.

Regulation is a serious barrier in the U.S. but Canada is a lot more rational about new technologies.

Simple answer to "why not solar" is that we need power at night, and it's not clear that storage at large scale would be cost-competitive with molten salt reactors. (I think nuclear baseload with solar for extra daytime load makes a lot of sense, though.)

I once described molten salt reactors to a very anti-nuclear activist in the Green Party, and he said "hmm...that actually sounds pretty good."

> solar potential

If I recall there's too much dust in Saudi Arabia for the solar panels to be any useful (and not enough rain to remove it). Here is some article on the subject: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2013/ph240/alshakhs2/. Nuclear would make more sense there.

Dust is a killer for consitrating solar power, but much less so for PV. You can also clean them with minimal water useage. It's just a tradeoff of how much desalination is worth it for efficiency gains.

Interesting. How about "cleaning" them with salt water? Sure the salt on the panels is not ideal, but it's better than dust.

Salt water + electricity = not good

Study mentions up to 50% of efficiency decrease after 6mo

Seems like the best solution would be mechanical cleaning (either automatic or manual)

Gaskets + insulators = problem solved.

The panels are sealed against ingress in any case.

Some sort of "spray and squeegee" system would likely even remove most of the salt. Windshield wipers for PV panels?

Saltwater tends to be lead to corrosion, which is expensive to deal with.

This is assuming the panel are close to the ground and not mirrors.

your link says they can just clean them once a week. that's a solved problem:

http://www.ecoppia.com/technology/

https://us.sunpower.com/blog/2017/12/04/meet-sunpowers-new-s...

or you can use a $100k panel washing truck: https://wash-bots.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/product2.jp...

A $100k expense and a person to drive it around cannot be a reasonable roadblock to solar, when we're talking about 100s of millions of dollars for one solar plant.

The sooner the world moves to renewables and stops pouring money into the volatile Middle East the sooner we can all sleep better.

I would not be so sure that would make the Middle East less volatile though...

Not really. Without oil the monarchies would struggle to survive. According to this article Qatar was just a poor city by the sea until oil was found: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/03/14/magazine/how-a-ransom-...

In the long term, if/when the world moves to non-fossil energy, then one could make an argument that, broadly speaking, the capability of ME nations to wage war would be commensurate with their non-oil economic power [1].

The question then, how are they going to reach that future equilibrium? Slowly and peacefully, or quickly and violently? Or even quicker with a nuclear Hail Mary pass?

[1] See how they all are scrambling to diversify their economies to not be as reliant on oil?

As someone from Middle East I totally agree with this. Oil is basically element which finances waging war in Middle East by governments .

The sooner we get fusion you meant.

Only 20-50 years away.

Saudis turning to nuclear tells you just as much about the country and technology as Venezuela going for Cryptocurrencies.

Saudi Arabia is an authoritarian dictatorship, is waging a brutal war against one of the world’s poorest countries (and not even winning) and is committing all sorts of crimes against architecture and urban planning with its brutalistic dystopia in the desert. They run air conditioners not just in their cardboard McMansions, but even outside, in the garden FFS.

Iran happens to find itself on the wrong side politically compared to the US. But in almost any category, from education to innovation to even democracy they run circles around those spoiled brats of heredity literally killing themselves on the highways out of sheer boredom.

Proponents of nuclear power should be quite scared to see this compass that reliably points south adopting their pet technology.

ok now do France and Japan

France and Japan have little energy resources and build their nuclear industries from the 60s to the 80s, long before alternatives existed. The French also have far better architects and generally know to set the right priorities in life.

The best counter-example may actually be Iran. But their nuclear industry also started before the recent exponential improvements making solar a viable alternative, and the various trade sanctions likely forced them to forgo the solar suppliers in the west and China, making them dependent on whatever Russia had to offer.

On other hand, I always think:

Many poor countries, especially in Africa, complain that their resources are exploited and they get nothing from it.

But that doesn't just happens with (Saudi) Arabs. You just don't try to exploit Arabs. When you try, you're the one who gets in debt prison. So at least they're doing something right.

Just my tangential 2c to your spot-on comment.

If you look at ressource-rich countries in Africa, you will actually see a somewhat similar structure: Equatorial Guinea, for example, is one of the world’s most expensive places to live and has a large ruling elite syphoning up the spoils of the county’s wealth in oil.

The difference is only the far larger populations of these countries. In that regard, it’s a model comparable to tax havens, in that it doesn’t work once the population grows too large. FWIW, Saudi Arabia also has a large underclass of what are essentially slaves building the country’s tacky infrastructure. But because they are immigrants, Saudi Arabia, as a country, is commonly seen as the perpetrator and not the victim in this scheme.

Edit: thriftwy’s criticism of this theory below is probably right. An index of <revenue from resources>/<population> would be helpful.

Saudi Arabia population is 30M actually (much higher than I guessed before checking, and on par with many African countries). And it is NOT dominated by immigrants, unlike UAE.

> "is waging a brutal war against one of the world’s poorest countries (and not even winning)"

I wouldn't say Yemen was exactly "winning" either, the situation over there seems horrendous.

Iran is winning. They invest $M's to provide weapons and training, the Saudi's spend $B's on F16s.

Yes, how awful. Another country trying to get off of fossil fuels. How ever will we cope?

In seriousness, how the hell is any of this relevant?

Well, under the hyperbolic post I see someone saying that Saudi Arabia going after nuclear power should be viewed with great skepticism, and some amount of trepidation, based off their past and present conduct.

Sure, but having nuclear reactors != having nuclear weapons. There are two ways to make nuclear weapons: enrichment and harvesting plutonium from reactors designed to make it.

Enrichment is almost certainly not going to be acceptable due to past and present conduct.

Harvesting is going to simply not be possible, because it requires a type of reactor designed for the task, and nearly all modern reactors are actively designed against it (known as proliferation resistant reactors). The US and allies won't sell LEU to the Sauds if they know they don't have proliferation resistant reactors.

Russia and Pakistan might though. Which is why it's important to lock the Sauds in on proliferation resistant reactors and LEU imports ASAP.

When Iran tries to do the same, all hell breaks loose. Media mindlessly and predictably add "weapons" to any mentions of Iranian nuclear program.

To be fair, Iran had an enrichment program that they were actively hiding under a mountain, they were clearly developing for nuclear weapons, because if you have the enrichment capability why wouldn't you?

But on the other hand, I see that exactly as the reason we ought to be involved with Iran's nuclear program and actively supporting it.

source for this?

Did you not hear the amazing tale of Stuxnet? Buckle in. The world has truly became a cyberpunk playland.

https://www.wired.com/2014/11/countdown-to-zero-day-stuxnet/

I can easily tell which side you're on, but you missed some pertinent information.

Iran is also fighting in Yemen (by proxy) and has been directly supporting the Assad regime, one of the most brutal dictatorships the Middle East has ever seen.

Saudis have been directly supporting Al Qaeda and its off-shoots like Nusra, the guys who cut off people's heads on camera. Oh wait, Saudis actually chop off people's heads regularly themselves. What's your point?

You think I'm a fan on Saudi?

My point is that OP noted that Saudi is waging war in Yemen but failed to do the same with Iran. It was an uneven comparison.

When two street gangs fight each other to the death for control of a territory, those that are not in that territory are better off staying away, not deciding that one likes a specific gang more and start helping it.

Assad isn't even close to "one of the most brutal dictators" the Middle East has ever seen.

That's a ridiculous statement to make and reeks of propaganda.

The Iranians are supporting him though and since our strategic interests are not aligned we get the propaganda.

(Not to suggest Assad isn't somewhat brutal, but there is a history of history of brutality in the area stretching back to the beginning of civilization and Western/Turkish effort in modern times haven't been kindly either so lets don't get all carried away with nonsense.).

I'm from Tunisia and spent a lot of time in the UAE, so I'd like to think I know a bit about the Middle East and its history.

"Not even close"? Are you serious? Do you have a list of the most brutal dictators at hand by any chance?

Heck, Hafez is definitely on that list alongside his son. The Assad family has been renowned for its brutality and torture program, ever since the 80s.

How nice to know about your birth place.

Assad still isn't one of "the most brutal dictators the Mideast has ever seen" and that is still is an absolutely ludicrous statement.

From the Assyrians to the Arabs to the Mongols to the Turks right up until Saddam, Assad isn't even close.

Edit: Wrote out a reply, but now I feel like it's a waste of time. Have a good one.

You as well. Probably we have to agree to disagree on this one.

Assad being one of the most brutal dictators between Iraq and Turkey within the last 20 years I'd probably agree with.

Your comment is either born of extreme ignorance, or is deliberate misinformation.

Lambasting SA for fighting in Yemen and then praising Iran, the other country fighting in Yemen, is beyond ridiculous.

Trashing SA for being an authoritarian dictatorship and then praising Iran, another theocratic, authoritarian dictatorship, that is just as happy to have the secret police disappear its citizens, is intellectual malfeasance.

> the other country fighting in Yemen

Care to cite any reports of any Iranian bombings of civilians or starving of civilians in Yemen? Or in fact any evidence of Iranian involvement at all (beyond the usual "our confidential Saudi/US sources say")?

Iran has always fought its external wars by funding and training Shia insurgents with the Imperial Guard, in the same way the US sends Special Forces into insurgent groups to fight alongside them. Or are the Yemeni rebels building counterfeit Iranian missiles that kill civilians?

The UN put up a resolution to denounce Iran from doing this just last month, but Russia vetoed it[0].

[0]https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/world/middleeast/iran-yem...

Wait, so your proof of claim "county A is fighting in country B" is that there were some weapons manufactured in country A found in country B? Do you realize what follows if I say county A is the US for example?

Regarding "training Shia insurgents", do you know that Houthis are Zaidis and Iranians are Twelvers? Do you have any evidence of claims you make about training with the "Imperial Guard" (are we doing Star Wars now)?

Your zeal for covering up Iranian actions betrays an extreme bias or hired mission.

The only countries even somewhat denying Iranian involvement in Yemen are its allies in the UN Security Council, and Russia isn't even really denying it, just blocking resolutions. Iranian soldiers have been killed or captured non-stop over the last 20 years in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Lebanon. They have directly supplied every Shia militant group in the Middle East for decades.

The fact that you deny this makes me believe you've been told to.

Actually I haven't even denied anything. I'm just asking you to substantiate your claims, but instead of doing that you make additional (unsubstantiated) claims, move the goalposts and use appeal to authority arguments.

And I did substantiate it by linking to a story about the UN resolution, yet you ignored it.

Iran may be supplying some weapons, but their involvement is not comparable to the Saudi involvement. Even the arms supply is questionable. The missile attack is the only solid link given, and the proof provided does not say when the Houthis acquired the missiles or when they were used. The details are in the linked articles in your NYT piece.

The UN also tried to start an investigation into Suadi war crimes, but it was blocked by the UK. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/boris-j...

Clearly neither is anything you'd call a liberal democracy but Iran is still a meaningful improvement on Saudi Arabia. In Iran ultimate power is held by the Ayatolla and theocrats but the elected part of the government has substantial power. And censorship, etc, are pretty consistently less encompassing in Iran than in Saudi Arabia.

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2018/iran

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2018/saudi-ara...

They're both horrible, oppressive places but if you were forced to move to one Iran would be the clear pick.

Where do I read about the outdoor air conditioning? This sounds somewhat viable to me, if we are talking about some semi-enclosed spaces, and there is no wind at all.

Read about it? Just put a stand-alone wall unit outside and sit underneath. Done.

Popular everywhere that is hot, rich and lacks building codes.

Conversely outdoor propane heaters are popular for counties that are cold, rich and lack carbon taxes.

I mean it is an obvious luxurious waste of money which is why people do it. It’s a fine show.

Hey, the US sold Saudi Arabia the cluster bombs they're dropping on Yemen [0]. Obama tossed a few missiles their way too [1].

[0]: http://www.businessinsider.com/us-to-sell-cluster-bombs-to-s...

[1]: http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-paul-ryan-letter-missil...

> literally killing themselves on the highways out of sheer boredom

What does this mean?

They have a reputation of buying expensive cars and driving them recklessly with impunity.

Saudi Arabia should absolutely not have access to nuclear technologies.

The west also shouldn't be exporting billions of dollars worth of weapons to SA, and yet, we do.

If someone can make a buck, someone will do it. And Trump isn't exactly the person to stand up against them.

Or Trudeau. Or anyone.

A bit late for that - they are believed to have provided the finance for the Pakistan nuclear program and the Royal Saudi Strategic Missile Force bought some Chinese missiles with very low accuracy originally designed as a a platform for nukes (being 1km out probably doesn't matter too much if your target is lobbing a nuke at Tehran).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_program_of_Saudi_Arabi...

You hear this train of thought a lot: "X country shouldn't have nukes". So why do people say a specific country "deserves" nukes while others don't? Why does the U.S. get nukes while it got to invade Iraq under the pretense of it having nukes? You might say everyone who is ideologically aligned with the policeman of the world (the West) deserves it. But in actuality not every country that has gained that capability fits the definition. The simple answer is that it's all about power balance. If you're an ally of the West, you can have all the nukes you want, but if you're not, you must put yourself at their mercy. Note I'm not commenting on SA here, but the whole "we should be able to decide who gets nukes or not". It's very interesting when you consider how U.S. foreign policy has affected the world and the fact that SA is considered an ally.

Yeah pretty much boils down to "good guys" and "bad guys." THe USA and allies are the good guys. From their perspective (and objectively, for the most part, in comparison to the others).

Ideally, no one should have nuclear weapons but they exist so we're left with asking how to deal with proliferation.

In my opinion, a state run by a Wahhabi theocracy should prevented from getting its hands on nuclear technology. They are an ally only in the sense that they have the deepest oil reserves and use their economic clout to get their way. They are also an ally to the US because they bring some semblance of stability to the ME region.

But KSA funds insurgents intent on destabilising Europe and it's not behaviour of an ally imo.

That train has left the station loooong time ago. Now any country that can fund educations of grad students in the west and has enough money to buy/extract materials needed to enrich nuclear fuel and has enough money to build such industrial operation is given to have access to nuclear technologies.

The fact that NK managed to do it pretty much makes "not have access to nuclear technologies" a non-starter argument

Isn't the same as "don't get high off your own supply".

also (fuel) Diversity is good.

I think every nation should become well "regulated" nuclear power

Weird headline. Oil is mostly used for transport, not power generation.

That's incorrect as it pertains to Saudi Arabia.

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=18111

Wow, TIL. 65% of electricity production is from oil. How incredibly wasteful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Saudi_Arabia#Electri...

Looking forward to the apocalypse, sparked by the most responsible Islamic country in the world!

The American Empire is so full of political science geniuses.

You mean of course as opposed to the Chinese or Russians that are alternatively guaranteed to build those nuclear power plants.

Tell me more about this political science genius and how the US controls the entire world and all actions by all nations and at all times, including a superpower like China.

I'm seeing lots of negative sentiment in this comments section. Just a question, why do you think you have the right to say who gets nuclear power and who doesn't?

Why can America get Npower and nukes but SA can't?

The Middle Eastern countries have long-simmering tensions, both internationally and internally, and those conflicts do not make possession of nuclear weapons a good idea. Allowing more countries in the Middle East to acquire nuclear weapons is probably strategically bad for the entire world. Therefore, the rest of the world, including the evil hegemonic United States, will use considerable political and economic means to try to prevent that. And military force, if it can be done with reasonable safety, given that it's not just the U.S. that doesn't want new members in the nuclear club, but the entire world, including NATO and the UN.

It's not a matter of "we're better than you, therefore we get nuclear weapons and you don't, ha ha." It's that our political system and domestic behavior, however dysfunctional, is still more stable, and we have some experience holding onto nukes without using them, having muddled our way (luckily) through the Cold War.

> It's that our political system and domestic behavior, however dysfunctional, is still more stable, and we have some experience holding onto nukes without using them, having muddled our way (luckily) through the Cold War

Isnt US the only country to have used multiple nuclear bombs in a real war, but still allowed to keep them?

‘Allowed’ by whom? Themselves?

> given that it's not just the U.S. that doesn't want new members in the nuclear club, but the entire world, including NATO and the UN

Everyone, as per the comment I replied to

Even themselves. Might makes right?

See, the thing about international relations is this: All those carrier battle groups, and ballistic missiles, and submarines, and main battle tanks, and commandos, and spy satellites, and long range strategic bombers, etc, etc, constitute a country's "right" to XYZ, where XYZ is anything related to international relations. That's why they are created and maintained.

>Why can America get Npower and nukes but SA can't?

Mostly cause America got Nukes first

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