RAMALLAH: Israel recently asked the United States to assist in the establishment of a nuclear power plant in the southern Negev desert, without signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty The report said that the Benjamin Netanyahu-led government has recently sent the requirement to the US government for getting its approval, but has received no response so far.
Israel wants to build the nuclear power plant in southern Negev desert, where its ambiguous Dimona reactor is located, in order to deal with the predicted growing domestic demand for electricity in the coming decade, according to the report.
Israel is interested in adopting the “Indian model,” which could allow it to build an internationally monitored civilian reactor while avoiding monitoring of other nuclear capabilities, the report said.
Israel has never formally admitted it has nuclear weapons, although there is a widespread international belief that the country does have such a military capability.
Plans for building a nuclear reactor in Israel have been in place since the 1960s. The government has already reserved a plot of land for the venture in the southern area. The plans were shelved in the wake of nuclear mishaps at various sites around the globe, but officials have not given up on the idea.
The Israeli Atomic technician Mordechai Vanunu reveals secrets of Israel’s nuclear arsenal to the Sunday Times on October 5, 1986. According to Vanunu, who spent 18 years in Israeli prison after being convicted of treason, the Dimona plant is “equipped with French plutonium extracting technology, which transformed Dimona from a civilian research establishment to a bomb production facility. Plutonium production rates amount to 40 kg a year, enough to build 10 bombs.”
According to the calculations of nuclear scientists consulted by The Sunday Times at that time, “at least 100 and as many as 200 nuclear weapons of varying destructive power have been assembled — 10 times the previously estimated strength of Israel’s nuclear arsenal.” The Israeli experts in the energy field estimate that the cost of building a nuclear power plant could reach $2 billion — only slightly more than the cost of building technologically advanced coal power plants that are meant to emit far less pollution than older models.
