Panelists included Khalid Al Sulaiman, vice president of renewable energy at King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy (KACARE), Daniel Roderick, senior vice president of GE Hitachi, Mike Waite, business development manager at Westinghouse Electric Company and Youssef Shatilla, associate dean of academic affairs at Masdar Institute of Science and Technology.

The discussion mainly focused on lessons that could be learned from the nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan, in March following a massive earthquake and tsunami.

“Safety is essential when Saudi Arabia would plan to build nuclear power plants. I recommend that the Kingdom would need to have water proof rooms, evacuation zones and assemble a national or international response team to deal with possible emergencies,” said Shatilla.

Agreeing that safety is paramount, Al-Sulaiman said: “We need to invest in stations to meet growing demand for electricity. To do this we are looking to use nuclear and solar energy.”

He stated that the main strategy for implementing such plans has been under way for the past 19 months and will be completed soon. All will depend heavily on research and development as well as the availability of human resources. These are all vital in developing and running the project.

Recent media reports stated the Kingdom would build as many as 16 nuclear reactors by 2020. This number has not officially been decided on yet, according to KACARE. The Saudi Electricity Company estimates the Kingdom will need as much as 2000MW per year to meet the demand that is increasing by 7 percent annually.

Nonetheless, GE Hitachi Senior Vice President Daniel Roderick says it shouldn’t take 10 years to build a single reactor. He stated that the company could complete a plant using a 39-44.5 month construction schedule.

Shatilla explained the reason why the region's richest holder of renewable resources would need to look to nuclear power for its energy needs.

“South Korea, China and Russia are all building nuclear reactors because energy sources such as oil and gas are too expensive. This is pointing to the use of nuclear energy as the most affordable source of supplying energy needs.”

He concluded that it would cost $1 million of oil to operate a 1000MW plant.  “Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been working to invest in renewable energy to make it available for the next generation,” Shatilla concluded.