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Saudi Arabia’s population has grown from 4 million in 1960 to over 31 million in 2016. It is the main electricity consumer and producer in the Gulf region, with 345 trillion watts of gross production in 2016, of which 41 percent was produced from oil and 59 percent from gas. The electricity consumption in the country continues to grow substantially — by 8 to 10 percent annually, compared with less than 1 percent in Europe.

Faced with surging energy demand for economic growth, Saudi Arabia is turning to nuclear power to diversify its electricity-generating mix and therefore reduce its reliance on fossil fuels. The Kingdom plans to build two large nuclear power reactors as part of a program of delivering as many as 16 nuclear power plants over the next 20 to 25 years at a cost of more than $80 billion. It has projected 17 gigawatts (GW) of nuclear capacity by 2032 to provide 15 percent of the power then, along with more than 40 GW of solar capacity. Plans for small reactors for desalination are also well advanced.

Hamid Al-Saqqaf, director of independent production projects at Saudi Electricity Company, points out: “Introducing nuclear power into the national energy mix is a sovereign decision in every country, according to its needs. In Saudi Arabia, this decision was already made in advance. The Kingdom has a continuously elevating demand on electricity.

“In 2015, we had about 62,000 megawatts in demand, and even though there currently seems to be a decrease in the amount of load, yet the growing demand for energy requires the introduction of nuclear energy as a means to achieve the base-load. As you might know, the operating costs for nuclear power is much less than the one produced from fossil fuel. The console of nuclear fuel produces more energy and at a lower price.”

The move toward nuclear power falls in line with the Kingdom’s Vision 2030, in which diversification of economy and energy from hydrocarbons is implied.

In 2010, a Saudi royal decree said that the development of atomic energy was essential to meet the Kingdom’s growing requirements for energy. Saudi Arabia is currently in the process of selecting a company for the construction of the first nuclear power plant in the country. There are five finalists from five countries — the US, China, Russia, France and South Korea — that the Kingdom invited last year to bid on a project to build the two units. A preferred bidder in the competitive dialogue is expected to be chosen in 2019.

Rosatom plans to outfit the Saudi nuclear power plant (NPP) project with the world’s first operational Generation 3+ reactor technology, known as the VVER-1200. The reactor is known for the most advanced safety systems, which fully complies with international security standards and post-Fukusima safety requirements.

As a part of its integrated offer, Rosatom is ready to supply the Saudi nuclear power project with nuclear fuel throughout its operational lifetime and ensure decent level of Saudi industry involvement and complex human resource development, in addition to growing public acceptance of nuclear power. Nuclear power plant deployment is always very beneficial and, obviously, it will be so for Kingdom.

Nuclear power gives a boost for local economy enhancement by highly-qualified personnel development and gains new competences to local industry, previously focused mainly on the fossil fuel sector.

Russia is the pioneer in peaceful use of nuclear energy: the first commercial NPP went into operation in 1954. Strong with more than 70 years long expertise in this sphere, nowadays Russia is the world innovation leader in nuclear technologies and holds the first place for the largest portfolio of foreign construction projects (36 NPP Units in 12 countries as diverse as Finland and China, India and Hungary, Egypt and Bangladesh).

“In October 2017, Rosatom and King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy signed the Program for Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy. Due to investments into nuclear and based on the international expertise and decades-long innovation experience, Saudi Arabia will profit from the stable, clean and environmentally secure energy source at affordable tariffs,” commented Saeed Al-Shahrani, a Saudi expert in renewable energy. (source)

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King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) announced the appointment of Dr. Donal Bradley as its new vice president for research.

Dr. Bradley will join KAUST in April, coming from the University of Oxford where he serves as the Dean for Science and Engineering.

“Dr. Bradley comes to us with extensive experience in research administration at a number of world-class institutions. I am confident that he will provide strong guidance and mentorship to our research community, and be a staunch advocate for R&D efforts campus wide,” said Dr. Tony Chan, president of KAUST.

Dr. Bradley is a distinguished scientist with a stellar research record. Among his many honors and awards, he was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society in 2004, fellow of the Institute of Physics in 2005 and fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology in 2013. He is also a Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher for cross-field publications, placing him among the most cited interdisciplinary authors globally over the past decade. He has a Google Scholar h-index of 125 having published over 630 publications with more than 80,000 citations. (sumber)

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"We pursue the moonshots,” said Abdulrahman Tarabzouni, but he was not taking about the space industry.

Tarabzouni is the youthful chief executive and managing director of Saudi Arabia’s newest technology investment fund, STV. It began operations just over a year ago, independently managed but backed by the Kingdom’s communications giant Saudi Telecom, aiming to exploit opportunities in the technology sector, which has been identified as core to the Vision 2030 economic development strategy.

STV is looking for world-changing investment opportunities. “As venture capitalists, we are seeking ideas that improve things by a factor of 100, not by a factor of 10. I think that’s the same spirit that we see nowadays in Saudi Arabia from the top down,” he explained.

Tarabzouni typifies the new generation of Saudi business leaders who are leading the top-down transformation of the country and its economy, and the journey away from oil dependency. (more)