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“Oil- and natural gas-rich Azerbaijan has hinted it may be interested in developing nuclear energy capabilities. While a preliminary agreement only allows for a 10- to 15-megawatt facility, the government has not disclosed the scale of a project slated to start construction by the end of 2014,” reads the article published on the site of the U.S. organization EurasiaNet, titled “Azerbaijan’s Plans for Nuclear Power Raise Concerns.”

The author wonders why is Azerbaijan, a country brimming with oil and gas, interested in developing nuclear power capacity? As the article then comes, it’s a question befuddling local experts and environmental activists in Baku. But the questions don’t stop there. Under a May 8 executive order, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has given responsibility for the nuclear project not to the Ministry of Energy or the Ministry of Industry and Economy, but to the Ministry of Communications and High Technologies, specifically, to a National Center for Nuclear Research that is answerable to the ministry.

As the executive order stressed Azerbaijan’s nuclear capabilities would be “for peaceful purposes,” according to Azerbaijani news outlets.

Work on the nuclear project is slated to begin by the end of 2014, with a hoped-for completion date “within three to four years,” Communications Minister Ali Abbasov announced on his ministry’s website May 13. Abbasov did not specify the cost of the project or the scale of the future power plant, though he referred to the construction of “several nuclear reactors.”

In 2008, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued to Azerbaijan a preliminary agreement for construction of a single 10-15-megawatt nuclear reactor for research purposes. Baku has not yet formally applied to the IAEA for an agreement about additional reactors. The nuclear facility would be situated on a plot of government-owned land 15 kilometers north of the capital, Baku.

As the article notes Abbasov, a 61-year-old native of President Aliyev’s ancestral Nakhchivan region with a doctorate in microelectronics and a passion for digital IT, has no experience in nuclear energy. Nor, for that matter, do any of his deputies.
“Baku’s interest in developing nuclear power dates back to the Soviet era. Those plans were mothballed amid the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, as well as Azerbaijan’s involvement in a prolonged conflict with Armenia,” the article reads.

The author notes that France, which generates over three-quarters of its energy from nuclear power and already has longtime energy ties with the Aliyev administration, apparently senses an opportunity. Thus, during his May 12 trip to Baku, French President François Hollande mentioned that unspecified French companies are willing to work with the Azerbaijani government on the construction of a nuclear-power plant. Earlier, Abbasov had named VINCI Construction Grands Projets, one of the world’s largest builders of mega-infrastructure facilities, as among the French concerns interested in getting involved in the nuclear project.

“Some local economic experts question the logic behind Azerbaijan “going nuclear,”” the article reads.

Economist Natik Jafarly believes that oil-and-gas-rich Azerbaijan already has the energy and electricity it needs to keep its economy going strong. According to official data, Azerbaijan in 2013 consumed 20.6 billion kWt/h of electricity out of a production supply of 21.5 billion kWt/h. The extra supply was exported to neighboring Georgia and Russia.

Azerbaijan, though, does not produce uranium or nuclear fuel, and would have to look for exporters. “It will make Azerbaijan dependent on uranium price-changes and also politically dependent [on exporting countries],” argued Jafarly, head of the non-governmental Society of Economic Bloggers. The government has not named any possible sources for such uranium supplies.

Other experts believe that the plant will not generate power. In February 2012, the director of Azerbaijan’s National Academy of Sciences' Institute for Radiation Problems, Adil Garibov, told ANS TV that the government would build a reactor strictly for research purposes, including the production of isotopes for use in medical treatments. The scientist added that his institute had hired 16 young physicists who were being trained at nuclear centers abroad for such tasks.

Whatever the project’s purpose, environmentalist Farida Huseynova, head of the Greens Movement of Azerbaijan, believes that the 2011 Fukushima and 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disasters show that the dangers of nuclear power outweigh the benefits for a country like Azerbaijan. “Supporters of this project say that Azerbaijani scientists will get the chance to conduct nuclear research. However, there are very few such nuclear physicists in Azerbaijan and they could do their research in other countries,” Huseynova said.

Rather than nuclear power, building up alternative energy resources well suited to Azerbaijan’s climate and geography – hydropower, solar power or wind power – would be preferable, she underlined. Jafarly agreed, noting the contradiction with the Azerbaijani government’s long-term demand that neighboring Armenia close its 38-year-old Metsamor plant, currently the only nuclear facility in the South Caucasus, because of its regional environmental risk. Baku states that Metsamor plant is dangerous for the regional ecology.

“Since Baku consistently demands the closure of the Armenian plant, it is not clear why the government wants to create a new threat on its own territory,” Azerbaijani expert stressed.

Azerbaijan not only calls on closure of the NPP in Armenia, but also threatens with a military strike. Thus, 21 November 2012 director of the Azerbaijani Center for Political Innovation and Technology Mubariz Ahmadoglu stated that the bombing of Metsamor by Azerbaijan is a rather logical act in the framework of Karabakh war and is even the most effective step for "liberation" of the territories. Earlier, Azerbaijani military expert, the participant of failed military aggression of Azerbaijan against NKR Uzeyir Jafarov dreamed about the possibility of a military strike on Metsamor. Thus, February 22, 2010, he stated that "Azerbaijani troops may use retaliation over Metsamor."