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Saudi Arabia to extract uranium for 'self-sufficient' nuclear program
Saudi Arabia plans to extract uranium domestically as part of its nuclear power program and sees this as a step towards "self-sufficiency" in producing atomic fuel, a senior official said on Monday.
Extracting its own uranium also makes sense from an economic point of view, said Hashim bin Abdullah Yamani, head of the Saudi government agency tasked with the nuclear plans, the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy (KACARE).
In a speech at an international nuclear power conference in Abu Dhabi, he did not specify whether Saudi Arabia seeks to also enrich and reprocess uranium – steps in the fuel cycle which are especially sensitive as they can open up the possibility of military uses of the material.
The world's top oil exporter says it wants to tap atomic power for peaceful purposes only in order to diversify its energy supply and will award a construction contract for its first two nuclear reactors by the end of 2018.
Meanwhile, women will be allowed to attend sporting events at stadiums. And here's a message for the skeptics (editorial).
Also at Newsweek.
Previously: Saudi Arabia Will Lift Ban on Women Drivers Next Year
Saudi Arabia Planning $500 Billion Megacity and Business Zone
Robot Granted "Citizenship" in Saudi Arabia, Sparking Backlash
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 31 2017, @07:02PM (5 children)
Saudi Arabia was OK with not having nukes as long as Iran didn't have nukes.
So then we fuck around, make a terrible nuke deal with Iran, maybe worse (could well be OUR uranium via Canada and Russia, not that Iran should need it), and pretty much just let things happen.
Just as more-or-less promised, Saudi Arabia follows through. On the bright side, the Saudi monarchy isn't likely to start nuking anybody. One should wonder how well they can prevent a few misbehaving fanatics from doing an unapproved launch. One should also wonder about stability:
It has been shown that governments frequently topple when they seem to be most strongly in control. This has something to do with suppressed anger, an unstable tipping point, and cascading unrest. For example, Syria and Libya and Egypt all had opposition pretty well suppressed before they suddenly changed, as did much of eastern Europe right before the end of the cold war. Oh, and also thanks Obama for the issues with Syria and Libya and Egypt. Letting the secretary of state fuck around, and then letting it leak out due to poor security, sure contributed to that.
Hey, why not antagonize Russia and risk World War III while we're at it? Oh yeah. Thanks Obama!
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday November 01 2017, @12:39AM (3 children)
"One should wonder how well they can prevent a few misbehaving fanatics from doing an unapproved launch. One should also wonder about stability"
The same applies to the US.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @01:38AM
Granted, we do have 1% or 2% muslim in the USA, and leftist groups like Antifa are constantly starting violence. Being a bit less politically correct when granting security clearances would stop that potential problem entirely.
Stability is currently quite good; there are outlets for expressing frustration. We do have a growing population of people who hate America (see above) that must be reduced.
Nothing is perfect. It's hard to find a country that combines low ethnic/religious hatred with the high purity needed to preserve itself. Maybe Iceland has us beat.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday November 01 2017, @04:54PM (1 child)
I use the word unpredictable. You want to be unpredictable. And somebody recently said I made a great business deal. And the person on the other side was interviewed by a newspaper. And how did Trump do this? And they said, he's so unpredictable. And I didn't know if he meant it positively or negative. It turned out he meant it positively. I’m never going to rule anything out, because, at a minimum, I want them to think maybe we would use it, OK? You know, we need unpredictability. The enemy, we have enemies. ISIS is a enemy. And it’s an enemy not wearing uniforms, so we don’t even know who the enemy is. You know, in the old days we’d have Japan or we’d have Germany or we’d have some country. And they would have soldiers. They would be dressed, we’d be dressed, we’d know who we were fighting. We don’t know who these people are. The fact is, we need unpredictability. I frankly don’t want the enemy to know how I’m thinking.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday November 02 2017, @01:44AM
Gotta try harder, there was some sense in there.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday November 01 2017, @05:20AM
In addition, homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hats, and age of consent has been raised to eight years old. Dziękuję.