Expert: Middle East is unlikely to introduce nuclear power in the nearest future

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Middle East is unlikely to launch nuclear power plants earlier that in ten years, says an expert of Oilprice.com Irina Slav.

The situation with nuclear energy in the Middle East is quite complicated. Iran is under sanctions because of its nuclear program that it claimed was completely peaceful. Iraq has been suspected of being making a bomb. Meanwhile the rest of the region is still over-dependent on oil and gas energy sources.

Still the expert notices the signs of things being changed in the Middle East. In the beginning of 2016 there were seven countries in the region working on their own peaceful nuclear projects. A few years ago there were even more of them, but most countries stopped developing their nuclear power programs after the Fukushima catastrophe.

The expert also marks that public acceptance pf nuclear power in the Middle East is quite high. The problem the region is facing with is political: eastern governments are to convince the international community that their nuclear programs will only be used for peaceful purposes. This may take about ten years.