Deputy Electricity Minister Osama Asran has ended a crisis on the referral of Mounir Abdel Fattah from the Nuclear Materials Authority to investigations upon his calls on President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi through Al-Masry Al-Youm to use Thorium as an alternative for Uranium and market it abroad.
Sources from the ministry said that Asran took part in a meeting with the authority chief and Abdel Fattah and called for calming the situation without engaging into conflicts. He also stressed necessity to draft file about the project and benefits that could be gained.
The authority chief earlier referred Abdel Fattah for investigations on charges of threatening national security when he called on the president in the media to use Thorium instead of Uranium as a safe nuclear fuel. According to Abdel Fattah, he submitted his proposal to the ministry more than once without getting response. The proposal was re-sent to the authority chief.
Thorium is used as nuclear fuel to construct safe Thorium reactors, instead of the Uranium reactors. Several radiation leakage accidents have occurred over the past few years including the leakage at Fukushima reactor in 2010-2011.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
