The cold hydrostatic test for Unit 4 at UAE's first nuclear power plant has been completed. Courtesy: Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation
The cold hydrostatic test for Unit 4 at UAE's first nuclear power plant has been completed. Courtesy: Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation
The cold hydrostatic test for Unit 4 at UAE's first nuclear power plant has been completed. Courtesy: Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation
The cold hydrostatic test for Unit 4 at UAE's first nuclear power plant has been completed. Courtesy: Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation

UAE becomes Arab world's first nuclear energy nation as Barakah reaches major milestone


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The UAE has become the Arab world’s first nuclear energy nation, the operators of the region’s most advanced power plant have said.

A major milestone at the Barakah nuclear power station was completed in recent days, paving the way for the plant to begin powering homes and businesses across the UAE.

The loading of nuclear fuel into the first of four reactors at the site, which together will eventually provide up to 25 per cent of the UAE's energy, is seen as the official start of operations and was completed over the past fortnight.

Although not yet feeding power into the electricity grid, that landmark is expected to be completed within the coming months after the first reactor is switched on and gradually powers up.

“Our teams have been training over the years to safely progress towards providing the UAE with clean, reliable and abundant electricity to power our economic and societal growth,” Mohamed Al Hammadi, chief executive of Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, said.

“Today, we are very proud as the UAE joins a limited group of nations who have achieved the global standards necessary to become peaceful nuclear operating nations.

"We take this responsibility very seriously and our teams and our teams are safely and steadily transitioning through the sophisticated highly regulated process to advance unit one towards full electrical generation capacity."

Of the four reactors at the plant, the first has been fully built and the other three are between 85 per cent and 95 per cent finished.

The fuel was loaded into the first unit following the granting of an operating licence from the UAE Federal Authority for Nuclear Generation last month.

The operation was completed by a team made up almost entirely of Emirati experts, who trained in South Korea, which has been working with the UAE to build the plant.

The next stages will see that first reactor slowly geared up, with rigorous testing taking place until it gradually hits full capacity.

The plant has been more than a decade in the making, with the UAE revealing its ambitions to pursue a nuclear energy programme in 2008.

“Barakah is more than an energy plant,” Mr Al Hammadi said. “It brings prosperity and value to the UAE with new industrial and human capacity, it significantly improves the carbon footprint and energy security of the nation, and accelerates the decarbonisation of the power sector to contribute to alleviating global climate change.”

Sheikh Zayed's poem

When it is unveiled at Abu Dhabi Art, the Standing Tall exhibition will appear as an interplay of poetry and art. The 100 scarves are 100 fragments surrounding five, figurative, female sculptures, and both sculptures and scarves are hand-embroidered by a group of refugee women artisans, who used the Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery art of tatreez. Fragments of Sheikh Zayed’s poem Your Love is Ruling My Heart, written in Arabic as a love poem to his nation, are embroidered onto both the sculptures and the scarves. Here is the English translation.

Your love is ruling over my heart

Your love is ruling over my heart, even a mountain can’t bear all of it

Woe for my heart of such a love, if it befell it and made it its home

You came on me like a gleaming sun, you are the cure for my soul of its sickness

Be lenient on me, oh tender one, and have mercy on who because of you is in ruins

You are like the Ajeed Al-reem [leader of the gazelle herd] for my country, the source of all of its knowledge

You waddle even when you stand still, with feet white like the blooming of the dates of the palm

Oh, who wishes to deprive me of sleep, the night has ended and I still have not seen you

You are the cure for my sickness and my support, you dried my throat up let me go and damp it

Help me, oh children of mine, for in his love my life will pass me by. 

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Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.

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ESSENTIALS

The flights

Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.

The hotels

Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.

The tours

A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages. 

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