Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) (TASE: ELEC.B22) has revived its plan for a nuclear power station, IEC VP engineering projects Yitzhak Balmas said at the Society of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in Israel's 2012 Electricity Conference, which opened yesterday in Eilat.
"I want to take this opportunity to inform you about the Efrat Program," said Balmas. "This is a program which trains electrical engineers for nuclear engineering. The objective is to ready nuclear engineering for nuclear power. We are now reviving this issue at both the level of training engineers and at various operational levels. Nuclear is not a rude word."
Co-panelist IEC VP nuclear energy research Naftali Tal estimated the cost of a nuclear power station at $4 billion. A catcall in the audience responded, "What's $4 billion compared with IEC's debt."
Commenting on the criticism of IEC's huge debt, Balmas said, "IEC's debt is the debt of the State of Israel, which does not invest properly in power lines, and the development of Israel's energy industry. This is everyone's debt, but we also have an asset. We've invested and there are results."
Co-panelists said that there was no alternative to the construction of a nuclear power station in Israel. "Nuclear energy is very cheap, especially compared with solar energy," said Tal. "The problem with the development of nuclear energy is that it will require a huge investment of money in infrastructure, but this problem will diminish over time."
Balmas said, "IEC recently revived its nuclear power activity. We used to be active in nuclear energy, and it ended, but we kept the know-how and part of the team. I can say with certainty that only IEC can build a nuclear power station in Israel. It is a political matter, which has been discussed and will be discussed, whether or not to build a nuclear power station. Even if a decision is taken to build one, we're talking about at least ten years for it to be built."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 18, 2012
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