Turkey and Korea to collaborate in nuclear energy project.

While local media were reporting on Turkey’s lifting of the headscarf ban for university students, another interesting Turkish venture was confirmed that has not received as much local coverage. The New Anatolian reported that “two leading Turkish and Korean companies have confirmed they have established a joint venture hoping to build Turkey’s first nuclear energy power plant.” Seoul Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) and Turkey’s ENKA expect the project to be completed by the end of the year.

A preliminary agreement was signed on Friday and follows a long history of attempts at nuclear energy from the mid 1990’s and abandoned in 2000, when similar plans were vetoed by the IMF. Turkey’s energy needs into the future have been projected to be 54,000 megawatts by 2020. This project has been foreshadowed for some time. The Executive Intelligence Review reported in February last year that the Turkish Minister for Energy and National Resources, Hilmi Guler had said, during a visit to a nuclear plant in Virginia in the US, “that nuclear power was an utmost priority due to the increase in oil and gas prices and the need for multiple sources of energy and that Turkey needed to invest $128 billion in energy supply over the next 15 years.” Turkey now appears to be bringing these aspirations to fruition.

In the same edition of The New Anatolian is another report that the US is unhappy with Turkey’s growing co-operation with Iran in the energy sector: ” Iran and Turkey have signed a series of energy agreements that allow Turkey to develop the Iranian natural gas fields and build a pipeline to supply gas to Europe.”

As pointed out in last February’s article in the Executive Intelligence Review there is currently a renaissance in interest in the development of nuclear power across the globe. So, Turkey’s foray into nuclear energy will obviously just be one of many to come from countries around the world.

~ by abstraktbiblos on Tuesday, 29 January, 2008.