Political bribes.
Fuck those who voted for this corrupt piece of shit.
Biden promised to give nuclear weapons program to KSA. Trump now likely to follow through/accelerate the transfer.
What Saudi Arabia wanted is the ability to mine and enrich its own uranium for civilian purposes. Biden wanted instead a deal like what the UAE got where it buys the fuel ready.
Saudi Arabia has stressed that it wants its program to be civilian-only and is more than willing to have UN inspectors inspect it. The US Congress wouldn’t allow such a thing because Saudi Arabia hasn’t normalized with Israel and even if it does who to say that the monarchy will never be replaced a la Iran? UAE despite normalization, Israel won’t even permit it to acquire the F-35.
There is zero economic value to nuclear energy even in areas without abundant sunshine or oil and gas. There is only weapons value for uranium enrichment operations out of "face value" nuclear energy sites. KSA would not do favours for energy technology access.
I disagree with you on nuclear energy, it is viable, reliable and affordable.
Saudi Arabia can get the technology from elsewhere, China is probably further ahead now than the US. The problem is who is going to stop the US or Israel from targeting them?
Anyways we are going off topic and I don’t share your suspicions of Saudi Arabia not when worse global actors (Israel) already have civilian and military nuclear capabilities.
The reason to give KSA nuclear weapons is appeasement for their tolerance of Israel behaviour. This was a recent Biden offer. I'm not suggesting that KSA will be any more abusive than other nuclear powers. US offer is partially to compete with China's offer, but more about Israel tolerance.
Even if Saudi Arabia normalized and became super friendly to Israel, it is law that no one should be allowed to match it in the region as far as the US is concerned. Saudi Arabia is never getting nuclear weapons with US blessing, it can’t even civilian nuclear energy without the US insisting that it buys the fuel from it.
Though this is a non-issue, if the program is purely civilian which the Saudi government is committed to.
I guarantee you that KSA only wants a nuclear program for weapons, and that the US is knowingly providing it to them. This is part of the negotiation for tolerance of Israel by KSA. It is impossible to have an informed position that supports the economic value of nuclear energy.
I guarantee you that Saudi Arabia needs the electricity. Cooling a house when it is 50C and humid isn’t cheap. Photovoltaic solar decreases in efficiency past 25C. Saudi Arabia currently has one of the highest CO2 emissions per capita. It has plenty of uranium that it can cheaply use to keep the air conditioners on, but you would rather them burn gas and oil instead despite all the guarantees and willingness to cooperate.
but you would rather them burn gas and oil instead
KSA has been big on solar announcements, slow on completion. The temperature coeficient of solar panels is improving, but still plenty good enough to get much better power yields/$ than nuclear. Desert climate means low enough overnight temperature even in summer. Most of the country has low humidity in summer. Solar is exceptionally well suited to its power demand. Most of the world has very fast deployment of solar. US nuclear weapons charade is going to be slow walked no matter how many RE deals Trump signs. Netanyahu still in charge, with loyal congress and State dept minions.
Nuclear energy is slow to build, and highly prone to corruption. Where US deep state, and contractors, can string along a desperate KSA to pay more for mistakes/delays, they will. You also need to stay in an energy shortage position, that burns oil/gas instead of building out renewables quickly, while the big output of nuclear is under planning/construction.
They could just use civilian nuclear like neighbor UAE, a proven technology that’s known to work. I don’t understand your objection to the use of nuclear power. China is now building them fast and cheap.
Would you be okay if Saudi Arabia accepted the US terms and only bought ready fuel from the US a la UAE?
KSA has been big on solar announcements, slow on completion.
Because the photovoltaic cells do melt in the heat, they actually need to be actively cooled. Saudi Arabia did build a solar thermal plant to power a factory.
They do not melt in heat. Their output is 10% lower at 45C higher temperature than 25C.
China has already reduced its nuclear permits and cancelled some projects, due to solar.
They do melt in the heat and require cooling. It is 35C at night and much hotter during the day, and it is hot and humid all year in the coastal cities where the majority lives.
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/07/12/solar-module-cooling-techniques-for-the-desert/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1018363921000453
The temperature of the panels will be hotter than the air around it.
Renewables are far cheaper, easier and faster to roll out than any fission reactor design out there today.
Well that money isn’t gonna launder itself now is it?
Derailing posts and accusation of “whataboutism” could lead to a 3000 day ban