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Activists also call into question the feasibility of the cooling scheme, pointing out that the 35 million cubic metres (mcm) from Khirbet Al Samra will come in the form of grey water, which is rarely used in reactor cooling. “It seems that everyone knows that a nuclear reactor must be near a lake or an ocean except us,” said Tareq Owaidat of the Mafraq Popular Youth Movement, part of the Irhamouna coalition.

“They blew up the gas pipeline in Egypt; is it really that difficult for someone on a donkey to take out a pipe from Khirbet Al Samra?”

The Bani Hassan tribe, which accounts for the majority of Mafraq residents, has a solution of their own: Place the nuclear reactor by Tuba in the arid plains of the Central Badia near the Jordanian-Saudi border, where residents are sparse and nomadic. The tribe even has a solution for water to cool the plant: draw water from the Disi Water Conveyance Project, which is to run from the southern desert to the capital, and extend it out into the desert. Energy officials dismiss the proposal. The 35mcm of water required to cool the plant would take a sizeable amount of the 110mcm generated by the water mega-project, they say, while the cost of transporting the water some 90 kilometres into the desert would be “astronomical”.

Activists contend that local residents lack the education and expertise to take advantage of job opportunities at the future nuclear power plant. “We have doctors, lawyers, electric engineers,” said Ahmed Mashagbeh. “We don’t have nuclear engineers in Mafraq.”

Ahmed Shaqran, Irbid lawmaker and Lower House Environment Committee member, alleged that the ministry is overlooking renewable energy in its “blind pursuit” of atomic energy. “We have such abundant resources in wind and sun, we have to ask ourselves: What if we spend $5 billion on solar energy instead?” Shaqran said.

ministry highlights the immaturity of renewable energy technology

According to Toukan, the ministry is set to launch its own information campaign later this year to dispel rumours and misinformation surrounding the nuclear programme, with a series of awareness sessions which are to culminate with a visit by IAEA chief Yukiya Amano to Amman