The week in energy: Saudi Arabia’s nuclear ambitions | Financial Times:
It was the US that started Iran’s nuclear programme in the 1950s, providing Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi with the country’s first research reactor and the enriched uranium needed to fuel it. The intention was always to support a civil rather than a military programme, and both the Ford and Carter administrations sought to stop the Shah acquiring nuclear weapons. But the US remained prepared to help him develop reactors for electricity generation, provided concerns about the risks of proliferation could be assuaged. In 1976, US utilities even used the Iranian nuclear programme in adverts to make the case for investment in new reactors at home. “The Shah of Iran is sitting on top of one of the largest reservoirs of oil in the world. Yet he’s building two nuclear plants,” the text read. “He knows the oil is running out — and time with it.” The US and Iran eventually reached an agreement that satisfied the Carter administration’s concerns in 1978, but the Shah’s downfall in the Iranian revolution the following year brought nuclear co-operation to a halt.
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