Egypt’s nuclear program, while perhaps behind South Africa’s, has the most potential for new growth, due in large part to international interest in securing a prolific contract to build an Egyptian nuclear power plant facility. At around $2.5 billion per reactor, the “nuclear renaissance” has reached Africa.

A Nuclear Continent

South Africa’s nuclear program is the oldest of any African nation. The program is suspected of generating several weapons, starting from the late 1970s until 1990; they are now believed to be dismantled. The program was later abandoned, and in 1996 South Africa signed the African Nuclear-Weapon-Free-Zone following the passage in 1995 of the Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction Act in Parliament. South Africa currently operates two nuclear power plants, Koeberg-1 and Koeberg-2, which satisfy approximately 10 percent of overall electricity demand in the country.

Libya, as well, operated a clandestine nuclear weapons program. Unlike South Africa, Libya voted for full disclosure and disarmament in 2003, after the U.S. invaded Iraq, in exchange for significant concessions and the removal of U.S. sanctions. Currently, Libya’s Renewable Energies and Water Desalination Research Center (REWDRC) manages a minor peaceful nuclear program focused mostly, as the title suggests, around water desalination research.

While no other major nuclear programs exist on the African continent, it would be overly presumptuous to assume that there are no nuclear-related activities underway on the continent. In fact, Russian companies, enabled by President Medvedev’s latest visit to Africa, have begun to explore the possibility of uranium mining and extraction in Namibia and Nigeria. One Russian company has selected “priority areas for exploratory drilling, [and plan to commence], pending the results, a pre-feasibility study for a uranium mine construction.”

Egypt’s Nuclear Program

Egypt has been a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) since 1981, a treaty which nearly all other Arab states—including Libya and Syria—belong to. The treaty grants Egypt the internationally recognized right to “develop and be assisted in the development of nuclear energy for civilian purposes.”

Although Egypt signed the treaty in 1981, their nuclear program actually began many years earlier, in March 1958, during the depths of the Cold War. Egypt’s first reactor, a 2MW reactor constructed and supplied by the Soviets, was built for research purposes, and went critical in 1961.

Their second reactor, a much larger 22MW pool-type reactor, was built by the Argentine company INVAP in 1997. Both reactors fulfill the same purposes: medical and nuclear solid-state research, nuclear engineering tests, and the education of scientists and technicians. The second reactor, unlike the first, is fueled with Egyptian uranium from their Fuel Manufacturing Pilot Plant.

Egypt has several potential sites of conventional uranium deposits, as well as several unconventional deposits that require a unique, albeit cumbersome, extraction process. These uranium deposits, however, provide some of the catalyst for a new nuclear program. Uranium has immense economic and political value for Africa. As a natural resource, it should fuel Africa’s energy demands, instead of being exported and sold on international markets.

Can Egypt Be Trusted?

There are skeptics. Most notably, critics point out that Egypt chose not to ratify the 1997 Additional Protocol of the NPT, which would have granted international inspectors the ability to perform in-depth inspections of Egyptian facilities with little prior warning.

Dr. Pierre Goldschmidt, a former Deputy Director General of the IAEA, recently expressed concern about IAEA reports on Egypt’s nuclear program. He believes that the “IAEA Secretariat appears reluctant to fully, promptly, and explicitly report its findings on Egypt.”

Dr. Goldschmidt’s complaints perhaps hold some merit. An IAEA report leaked to Reuters in May of 2009 revealed that trace amounts of highly enriched uranium (HEU), which can be weapons grade, was discovered in samples taken in 2007-2008 from Egypt’s Inshas Nuclear Site, the site of Egypt’s two research reactors. The extent and grade of the discovered material is not known. However, in 2007, a nuclear research reactor in South Africa was attacked by a gunman who nearly gained control of the facility. To avoid a similar incident, security must be of paramount importance.

Egypt moved quickly to respond, claiming that the material was from containers for medical and agricultural research and that the IAEA had been satisfied with their explanation. As a sign of goodwill Egypt allowed Pugwash, a global arms and disarmament conference, to meet in Cairo in 2006.

At the same time, Egypt leveraged a few charges of its own. They pointed out that Israel’s failure to participate in the NPT fails to create a safe regional environment for Egypt—an environment the NPT is supposed to help foster. How, then, can the region be expected to abide by the NPT?

Beyond the squabbling and rhetoric, however, the international community has little to fear from Egypt’s nuclear program. Egypt has consistently remained committed to establishing a nuclear-weapons free zone in the Middle East. It does not experience nearly the same corruption or destabilizing terrorism as some other African states. Perhaps most importantly, Egypt has nothing to gain but much to lose from a secret nuclear weapons program.

It’s the Economy, Stupid

Indeed, from a realist point of view, Egypt has little motivation to acquire nuclear weapons technology. Iran’s program is closely monitored by Israel and the U.S. and Egypt has seen the problems North Korea has caused in South East Asia. Egypt’s conventional security forces can easily counter its African neighbors.

International energy prices rose dramatically in 2008, and continue to experience more fluctuations due to the global financial crisis. Part of Egypt’s plan to reduce the impact of unreliable energy costs has been to augment current energy supplies with a low-cost, domestically produced alternative.

Nuclear power can partially and cheaply satiate domestic energy demands, releasing Egyptian reserves of natural gas and oil for exportation to international markets. On the other hand, a hidden weapons program, if discovered by the Western world, would only bring sanctions and economic difficulty.

Careful, Careful…

The application of Egypt’s nuclear power, however, must be carefully controlled. Nuclear power can provide concrete economic benefits. It should not be, however, the sole catalyst of Egyptian industrial and economic growth.

A successful nuclear energy program, however, will provide Egypt with important international regard. Egypt can lay the foundation for further exploration of nuclear-related activities, including more power plants. This technological experience can, in the long-term, give Egypt the ability to compete in the “nuclear renaissance” in the Middle East and Africa.

It will also allow Egypt to lead by example with regards to the nuclear weapons free zone (NWFZ). This presupposes, however, that the Egyptian government prudently and safely oversees Egyptian reactors. All eyes will be on Egypt.

Egypt’s nuclear program, beyond simply a mechanical response to economic stimuli, has the potential to spur long-term strategic planning and widespread industrial, governmental, and economic reform. It should. The marriage of Egypt’s nuclear foundation with improved domestic infrastructure and natural uranium deposits, if carefully managed, is a winning combination.