Nuclear Energy Archive

Earlier this month, Algeria and Russia signed a nuclear energy cooperation deal. In an email interview, Bruno Tertrais, senior research fellow at the Paris-based Fondation pour la Recherche Strategique (Foundation for Strategic Research), discussed Algeria’s nuclear program. WPR: What is the current status of Algeria’s civil nuclear program? Bruno Tertrais: Algeria has had a nuclear research program for almost three decades. Algeria has two main research facilities: Draria, which hosts a small 1-MW reactor near Algiers, and Ain-Oussera, a 15-MW reactor in the Sahara desert south of Algiers. The country has had plans for nuclear power reactors for a long […]

A new love affair is blossoming in Asia. Like so many who have entered the rarefied air of romance, the protagonists, India and Japan, are starry-eyed and filled with expectations that theirs is a relationship of unusual depth, one that was meant to be. They may be right. There is one obstacle that remains a roadblock—differences over nuclear strategy—but that should not obscure the fact that relations between two of Asia’s major powers are growing closer, and there are many reasons to expect this to continue. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi just completed a visit to Japan, something of a […]

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Japan in the first week of September generated huge expectations in both New Delhi and Tokyo. During Modi’s first bilateral visit outside the subcontinent, Tokyo and New Delhi agreed to upgrade their annual strategic dialogue to the level of foreign and defense ministers. Tokyo also lifted its ban on six Indian firms involved in defense research and development, which dated back to India’s 1998 nuclear weapons tests, paving the way for the transfer of Japanese military technology to India. Japanese Prime Minister Abe also assured Modi that Japan will invest around $35 billion […]

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s visit to India last week highlighted the two countries’ increasingly complementary geoeconomic objectives. The visit saw the conclusion of a much-delayed bilateral civil nuclear cooperation agreement that paves the way for uranium exports from Australia’s high-quality mines to fuel India’s ambitious nuclear energy plans. While in value terms future Australian uranium exports may not seem like much, they will actually enable India to undertake its next wave of industrialization in a more carbon-competitive manner, and that in turn will fuel massive demand for other Australian mineral exports. The strategic nature of the India-Australia alignment is […]