By Antonia Dimou
The Jordan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) recently announced that the Kingdom will not concede its rights to develop its peaceful nuclear programme in line with international standards, and indicated that Jordan will not follow the route of the UAE, under which the Gulf state conceded the right to engage in enrichment or reprocessing activities in return for cooperation from the US. Also, the JAEC clarified that the government will not sign any agreement that is prone to compromise its rights as enshrined in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The JAEC is currently examining four offers from nuclear technology suppliers, namely Canada, South Korea, Russia and an offer from a joint French-Japanese venture (AREVA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries), and by the end of April 2010, the JAEC was to qualify two of the offers and spend the next year negotiating with the short-listed companies to select the winning bidder.
Jordan has close cooperation with four of the “big five” nuclear powers namely Russia, the UK, China and France, and discussions are underway to sign a nuclear cooperation agreement with the US. Jordan is on pace to construct two 1.000-megawatt Generation III reactors in the next 15 years in order to transform the country from an energy importer to an electricity exporter. The Kingdom’s first nuclear reactor, slated for a site near Aqaba, is expected to be constructed within the next decade.
Under a mining agreement signed on February 21, 2010, the French company AREVA is obligated to provide the Kingdom with its needs of enriched uranium, and mining activities will commence in central Jordan as early as 2012. This is the first uranium mining agreement and one of the largest contracts ever signed in Amman, which forms the first phase of Jordan’s domestic nuclear power programme.
As prerequisite to several regulations to govern the nuclear sector, the Jordan Nuclear Regulatory Commission (JNRC) established in 2007 is in the final stages of reviewing the new Law on radioactive safety and nuclear security drafted with the assistance of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The current legislation, the 2007 Radioactive Protection and Nuclear Safety and Security Law, deals only with small-scale radioactive materials, and does not take into account the amount of regulation needed for the Kingdom's nuclear programme. Thus, the new Law on nuclear safety to set a regulatory framework is essential.
Key regulations are those focusing on the extraction, mining and milling of nuclear materials, and the safety of research nuclear installations, sub-critical assembly and zero-power reactors.
Other regulations cover the JNRC’s work with Worley Parsons, the government's consultant for preconstruction preparations for Jordan’s first nuclear reactor, and concern site approval, construction permits, environmental reports and emergency evacuation plans.
The new Law is to come into effect ahead of major milestones in Jordan's peaceful nuclear programme, such as the sub-critical assembly of the nuclear research reactor in Irbid, estimated to begin within two years, along with the uranium mining.
Jordan is signatory to several international conventions, including the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Convention on Nuclear Safety, the Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident, the Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
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