New economic boom with the entry of Saudi Arabia to peaceful nuclear use

Under the leadership of the Custodian of the Two Holy Shrines King Salman bin Abdul Aziz, Saudi Arabia is seeking to diversify its sources of energy and lack of dependence on fossil fuels and natural gas only for electric power.

The Saudi government believes in the use of nuclear energy as the perfect solution for electricity generation and water desalination, in this context the Kingdom plans to build about 16 nuclear reactors for peaceful energy at a cost reaches up to 80 billion dollars until the year 2040.

Kingdom use of nuclear energy or solar power to generate electricity will lead in the opinion of many experts to achieve economic booms up to 200 billion riyals annually, of which 150 billion riyals are specified as aid for electricity generation, where figures from the ministries of oil and electricity suggests that the kingdom consumes about two million barrels per day to run the electric power and desalination plants.

Risk in the long run

Ali bin Saleh al-Barrak, former CEO of Saudi Electricity Company, confirms that the dependence on fossil fuels for long periods for power generation includes risks in the long run such as increasing oil consumption which affects the export capabilities of the Kingdom.

He adds that the kingdom electricity consumption reaches at the present time to 60 thousand megawatts and will rise to 100 thousand megawatts by 2040 and this means the need to add 40 thousand megawatts in less than 15 years, it is planned that the nuclear plants to be built to provide 20 percent of the generated electrical energy during this period.

Ali bin Saleh al-Barrak, says that the private sector will have an increasing role in the coming period in the production of electricity, where there is a list of the projects offered by the government to the private sector to invest in, it comes in time in which the private sector currently produces about 15 thousand megawatts of electricity , stressing at the same time, there is no problem in financing these projects but fears come from the non-availability of the mixture of fuel to run power plants.

From the standpoint of the former CEO of Saudi Electricity Company, the Saudi private sector will benefit from future projects to generate electricity by using nuclear power, where this benefit will vary ranging from construction operations, contracting, manufacturing, building and materials even the ability to build and operate nuclear power plants in the future.

Benefits

Kingdom's asylum for a peaceful nuclear energy program in order to generate electricity will bring many advantages for the national economy, increased high-level employment opportunities comes on top of these benefits, besides the establishment of nuclear technology competencies, and the qualification of the Saudi youth to become proficient in the uses of nuclear energy in the next few years.

Benefits to the Saudi economy from the application of the program of nuclear power also include the development of the industry for the future, and the development of atomic engineering and other research fields, such as medicine, agriculture, minerals, and water desalination.

Scientific research

Gains that kingdom can benefit from the adoption of a peaceful nuclear energy program, not just limited to the economic aspect, but extends to the scientific side, where the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable power is preparing a specialized study to form a special nuclear advisory body to responsible for building nuclear power plants in the kingdom.

The King Abdullah City aims from this move, that this body to be the local partner for projects of nuclear power and research in the kingdom, it will become one of the most important resettlement tools of Sciences and Industries of nuclear power, and the biggest goal that it seeks to is that 60 percent of the components of this industry and service contracts to be from the local market.

Big payoff

The economic expert Turki Fadak member of the investment committee at the Riyadh Chamber, sees that the kingdom seek to the use of nuclear energy for electricity, and also use that energy in other uses, such as water desalination, agriculture and health will have a significant impact on the kingdom economy, which will lead to the provision of hundred thousands of barrels of oil that were consumed locally in these uses and that has a great economic feasibility.

Turki Fadak adds that it is well known that water desalination and electricity production costs are too high and therefore, any attempt to use other means of methods such as renewable energy will bring huge economic Saudi economy.

In order to achieve the ambitious Saudi program to enter an era of peaceful use of nuclear energy, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques government has signed a number of agreements to build nuclear power plants and Russia comes on top of these countries, where the Crown Prince and Defense Minister Prince Mohammed bin Salman during his recent visit to the Russian capital Moscow, signed a number of agreements to build a number of nuclear reactors for peaceful uses in the forefront of power generation and water desalination.

Kingdom also signed a memorandum of understanding with South Korea on cooperation in the development of nuclear energy and that was on the sidelines of the Korean President's visit to Riyadh in April.

The MOU invite Korean companies to participate in the construction of at least two nuclear reactors of small or medium size in Saudi Arabia.

It is noteworthy that Saudi Arabia covets to acquire nuclear energy of 17 gigawatts by 2040 and about 41 gigawatts of solar energy.

88 billion Saudi riyals is the volume of investment of Saudi Arabia in real estate deals during Rajab and Sha'ban.

Property sales recorded in various cities of Saudi Arabia marked decline during the month of Sha'ban by 34%, compared with Rajab of up to 31 billion riyals, which were distributed to 24935 real estate deals.

According to the monthly data for the real estate index of the Ministry of Justice, the month of Sha'ban record sales of residential real estate worth up to 20.6 billion riyals, which is a lower value by 48% of residential sales in the month of Rajab, besides commercial deals of up to 10.4 billion riyals, which is less than 42% of the commercial value of sales in Rajab.

Specialists explains this low momentum of real estate transactions in Sha'ban compared to Rajab due to the intersection of the summer vacation with the month of Sha'ban, during which the real estate market is witnessing a recession as people interested and working in the real estate sector (especially smallholders) usually stop buying and selling as they travel for tourism.

The head of the Real Estate Committee at the Jeddah Chamber Abdullah Ahmari said: Most of landlords are seeking before the summer break to finish most of their transactions even if the real estate were at lower prices.

Ahmari added that the recession will continue to the end of Ramadan due to concern of most of the owners by worship and the privacy of the holy month. And Ahmari confirms that the recession will eventually lead to decrease bloated real estate prices and will help citizens who cannot afford to own housing.

He pointed out that the citizen is watching eagerly the steps of Ministry of Housing and its continuous advertisements hoping to get housing in one day. And Ahmari wished that recession may lead to convince property owners to take down land prices, which supposedly constitute 30-35% of the cost to build or buy housing and the descent of its prices will greatly reduce the current price of the property (because the prices at the present time reaches to 60% of the value of the property, which is an exaggerated thing) pointing out that lowering prices and make it accessible to the hands of consumers will contribute to solve the housing crisis, which is what State seeks to achieve.