The Egyptian Government “explained” recently the choice of Russian design for its first nuclear power plant, Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant:
-Russia is the only country that manufactures all the nuclear power plant components by itself, which means it 100% uses Russian-designed equipment in manufacturing the NPP without the need to import equipment from any other country.
-Russia does not put any political restraints.
-Russia will build a demonstration center in Egypt that will raise the public’s awareness about the power plant.
-Russia will construct Russian factories that will manufacture the power plant’s components in Egypt.
-Training and workshops on nuclear technology for the Egyptian workers in NPP will be carried out by Russia
However, if we cannot deny that Russia is investing in Egypt, none of these arguments stand:
Russia does not manufacture the equipment. Only some of them. The Instrumentation and Control, most of the critical valve and pumps, the emergency diesel generator, the electric cable, and hundreds of sensors, mechanical pieces, are imported. All Russian projects have a major part of imported equipment.
As for the political constraint, the nuclear is part of the global expansion of Russia to control the supply of uranium, waste management and cost of electricity with the user. The constraint has a political side.
The demonstration center is mandatory. All new projects require to inform the public, even in China, in Haiyan, the government set up such center to pursue the projects of national interest. In France, EDF has such information center in each nuclear power plant.
As for the components, from our information, only 20% of the plant will be locally procured, for the civil engineering and infrastructure. Russia plans to export 100% of the equipment.
Finally, the training done by Russians, that is a no-brainer. We do not expect Egypt to ask CNNC to train the workers in Chinese for a plant run by Atomstroyexport.
Egypt has been a historical ally of Russia, the government could been sharper: we buy from Russia because we have been dealing with this country for 40 years, from military to energy sectors and we prefer them to China and others.
