Leading Bahrain Parliamentarian Says Nuclear Energy Necessary As Oil And Gas Dry Up
Chairman of the Bahraini parliament Khalifa Al-Dhahrani has indicated that he believes that nuclear energy is an important tool for nations to develop because oil and gas supplies will eventually dry up. Bahrain has first hand knowledge of the risk of oil depletion; it was one of the first countries in the Middle East to export oil and also one of the first whose production rate peaked and began a rapid decline. At one time, revenues from oil production represented 60% of the national income. That monetary flow has virtually disappeared.
Al-Dhahrani has also indicated that he believes that Bahrain has traditional and important ties with its near neighbor in Iran and that Iran’s nuclear energy program is peaceful and not a threat to its neighbors.
That statement is worth noting, especially given the importance of bases in Bahrain to the US military presence in the Gulf.
katana0182 – Though I do not at all like the way that the current leadership of Iran treats its citizens, I have read a lot about the way that the Shah treated them. Things were not terribly better then. In fact, depending on your perspective, they were a lot worse with far lower literacy rates, a bigger separation between the haves and have nots, less say in governmental decisions, etc.
Also, being a terribly cynical observer of the way that America chooses its friends and the way that our own government establishes priorities, I cannot help but notice that Iran is a long standing irritation for two of our more irritating “allies”. Israel obviously has issues with the country, but so does Saudi Arabia. In one of my favorite books about energy – Daniel Yergin’s “The Prize”, the story of the commercial rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia is threaded throughout.
It is perfectly understandable to me – though the thought makes me angry – for each of those countries to be feeding misinformation. Israel for more traditional political/power reasons and Saudi Arabia because they fear the economic consequences of an Iran that has a strong nuclear energy program that gradually frees them to sell more and more oil and gas into the world market. Saudi’s think of the world market for oil as THEIR market to dominate. They would hate the idea of Iran developing spare capacity (energy is fungible) and having more power to dictate quotas and prices within OPEC.