Al-Quds University

Renewable energy and Sustainability Master Program

Sustainable energy in Palestine
) )Policies, opportunities and challenges
Prepared For
Dr .Husain Al Samamra
Prepared by
Bassam Saleem
1. Introduction

Sustainable energy is energy derived from the natural resources of the environment
that is endless and meets the needs of the current energy demand. Some of it is
produced from wind, sun and running water. This energy is considered
environmentally friendly, unlike traditional energy that depends on fossil fuels and
petroleum, which harms the environment and causes global warming and rise of
global temperature and pollute the environment. (Rahman, 2007)

The scarcity of traditional energy sources such as oil and gas in Palestine and their
high cost in addition to that, the Israeli occupation governs the quantity and cost of
fuel. The Palestinian tend to rely on renewable energy sources. This also comes with
the increasing of global trends to exploit alternative and renewable energy sources.
(Majewski, 2019)

2. Background & Literature Review

Over its entire history, the nuclear power industry experienced only three serious
accidents: the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, and
the Fukushima Daiichi accident in 2011 (Balcombe et al., 2015). As the number of
casualties was limited, the safety record of the nuclear power industry looks quite
good when compared to the death toll in the global coal mining industry, which is
considered an unfortunate yet generally accepted cost to maintain the supply of coal
power. However, nuclear incidents carry a much higher fear factor for the public, and
there is always a potential for an even greater disaster in the future. In monetary
terms, nuclear power plant accidents may involve astronomical costs for remediation
work. (Alley, 2013)

Spent fuel from a nuclear reactor includes a number of isotopes that are considered
radioactive waste. This radioactive waste can be disposed of in a solid state, shielded
and packaged, in deep geological formations where it would remain contained for
long periods of time (Rahman, 2007). As the amount of waste is relatively small, this
task appears technically achievable. Notwithstanding potential issues, such
underground storage would provide the best possible protection against the release of
radioactive material into the environment. However, due to public and political
opposition to radioactive waste sites, the problem of radioactive waste disposal has
never been solved. (IEA, 2019)

In the United States, for example, the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository
project was canceled in 2009 (Alley, 2013). As a result, quantities of spent fuel are
stored under water in spent fuel pools at nuclear power plants at hundreds of locations
worldwide. The temperature in these pools must be controlled by circulating cooling
water. The water pumps require continuous supply of electricity, which makes this
method of storage vulnerable to a number of natural and human-made disasters
flooding, earthquakes, terrorist attacks, war, or a prolonged electrical grid outage.
(Brynolf et al., 2018)

Economically, the need to store radioactive waste on premises is an added financial

burden for power plant operators. After a few decades of growth, the nuclear power
industry entered a period of stagnation and decline. One contributing factor was the
2011 Fukushima accident, and another was the increasing cost of nuclear power.
(Jarvensivu et al., 2018)

Nuclear technologies have become expensive due to the huge regulatory and
institutional burdens that stand in the way of building and operating these plants, long
time horizons that increase risks, as well as the increasing costs of nuclear power
plant decommissioning. While the financial profitability of nuclear power has always
been a contentious issue nuclear power often received government subsidies and
could be motivated by military purposes at the current cost levels, nuclear power
plants are no longer competitive with other sources of generation, such as natural gas.
(Alley, 2013)

Due to the lack of investment and closures of the existing plants that reach their end-
of-life dates, the future of nuclear power is uncertain. The IEA has estimated that
advanced economies could lose 25% of their nuclear capacity over 2019-2025, and as
much as two-thirds of it by 2040 (IEA, 2019). The lost nuclear capacity would be
replaced, at least to some degree, by natural gas generation, contributing to increased
GHG emissions. The primary growth markets for nuclear energy are limited to Russia
and China. (Majewski et al., 2019)
The final limit for nuclear power is the depletion of uranium resources. For a number
of years, mining of uranium has been insufficient to fuel the world’s nuclear reactors.
As of 2014, mineral uranium accounted for about 80% of the demand (Bardi 2014).
The gap was filled by uranium recovered from the stockpiles of the military industry
and from the dismantling of old nuclear warheads. Various models predict peak
uranium to occur some time in the 2020s, depending on the rate of growth or decline
of the nuclear power industry. Escaping the limitations of mineral uranium supply
would require breeder reactors, where a fissile isotope is created from a more
abundant, naturally occurring non-fissile isotope.

Palestine suffers from a great shortage of natural resources in which this suffering
increases when talking about traditional sources such as oil and gas, and this puts the
energy sector in Palestine facing great challenges represented in relying on imports to
supply energy, as it is forced to import more than 88% of the electric energy from the
Israeli occupation. (PENRA, ).

The high prices of this import and the result in high financial cost estimated at about
seven hundred million dollars annually due to the occupation’s control over the
quantities and prices of fuel (MASADER, ), so this was one of the justifications
for moving towards other alternatives to provide electrical energy in Palestine. This
trend poses a new and strategic challenge in this field and that is all linked to
dependence on alternative renewable energy sources to provide economic security and
for consumption purposes, as well as to cope with the global rise in the exploitation of
renewable energy, which has positive advantages for the environment, an investment
field, and job opportunities.

3. Problem Statement

According to the literatures reviewed, it is obvious that the subject of alternative

energy has been discussed strongly and widely in the literatures. This leads to the
importance of seeking for another resources of energy, under the shadow of fears by
economists about the expected scarcity of the fuel rate, which could be occurred in
2050 (Majewski, 2019).

Additionally, after reviewing literatures related to alternative resources of energy, it

has been found that there is a gap in literatures that the place of study did not include
Palestine and the internal and external challenges faced by Palestine toward investing
in alternative resources of energy. Based on that, the problem of this study represents
in the following main question:

“What are the policies, opportunities and challenges that face the sustainable
alternative resources of energy in Palestine?”

4. Study main objective

The present study aims mainly to identify the policies, opportunities and challenges,
which are related to the alternative sources of energy in Palestine.

5. Purpose of the Study

This study will try to achieve the following objectives:

1- Identifying the policies, and opportunities of applying the alternative resources

of energy especially the Solar energy in Palestine.
2- Exploring the way of consuming the alternative energy resources.
3- Investigating the obstacles that hinder the investment in the alternative energy
resources.
4- Providing suggested model toward investing in the alternative resources
energy.

6. Questions of the Study:

The present study seeks to answer the following questions:

1- What are the policies, and opportunities of applying the alternative resources
of energy especially the Solar energy in Palestine?
2- How Palestinian communities and bodies can benefit from consuming the
alternative energy resources.
3- What are the obstacles that hinder the investment in the alternative energy
resources?
4- What are the suggestions and recommendations toward investing in the
alternative resources energy?

7. Justifications of the study

The current study will be conducted due to the following reasons and justifications:

1. The importance of converting from using the traditional source of energy

(Petrol) for using the Alternative resources of energy worldwide.
2. Contributing into the economic development of Palestine, as the alternative
sources of energy contributes into the raising of the GDP and reducing the
expenses on the energy.
3. Adapting with the accelerated advancement in technology among the world.
4. Being independent in using the energy specially that Palestine is under
occupation, in addition to take control over the energy resources that
Palestinian communities gain.
5. Energy is a necessary and essential element to suit all human needs and to
achieve of economic, environmental and independence development field to
cope and with scientific progress.

8. Study methodology

According to the subject of the study, the descriptive approach design will be used
toward conducting the study, based on describing the policies, opportunities and
challenges of the sustainable resources of alternative energy. However, the study will
depend on the qualitative method, throughout the content analysis tool of data
collection, in addition to the semi-structured interview for gathering the secondary
data from the policy makers and formal bodies related to the Energy and power
authority and the private companies working into the alternative energy resources
solutions.

The population of this study is identified within 14 private companies implement and
produce projects related to alternative energy. In addition, one government authority
controlling the work of those companies. Based on that the study will depend on the
whole population survey, which attributed with a small population and could be
covered by the researcher.

9. Time Table

It is expected to conduct this study according to the following timetable:

# Activity / Week 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
 1 Reviewing literatures
2 Defining the problem
3 Previous Studies summary
4 Data Collection
5 Filtering data
6 Analyzing data
7 Extracting the results
8 Discussing the Results
9 Conclusions
10 Writing the final report of the study

10. References.

Alley, W.M., Alley, R. (2013). Too Hot to Touch: The Problem of High-Level
Nuclear Waste. Cambridge University Press, ISBN: 1107030110.

Balcombe, P., K. Anderson, J. Speirs, N. Brandon, A. Hawkes. (2015). Methane and

CO2 Emissions from the Natural Gas Supply Chain. Imperial College London,
https://www.sustainablegasinstitute.org/methane-and-co2-emissions-gassupply-chain/

Bardi, U. (2014). Extracted: How the Quest for Mineral Wealth Is Plundering the
Planet. Chelsea Green Publishing. ISBN: 1603585419

Brynolf, S., M. Taljegard, M. Grahn, J. Hansson. (2018). Electro-fuels for the

transport sector: A review of production costs. Renew. Sustain. Energy, 81 (2): 1887-
1905.

IEA. (2019). Nuclear Power in a Clean Energy System. International Energy Agency,
Paris, https://webstore.iea.org/nuclearpower-in-a-clean-energy-system.

Järvensivu, P., T. Toivanen, T. Vadén et al. (2018). Governance of Economic

Transition. Invited background document on economic transformation for the UN
Global Sustainable Development.

Majewski, W.A. (2019). Energy Alternatives. Eco Point Inc., pp: 1-30. Retrieved
from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336532882_Energy_Alternatives/
citation/download

MSADER. ( ). Energy & Environmental Systems. (http://www.msader.ps/ ).

Palestinian Authority Energy and Natural Resources Authority. ( ).
(www.penra.pna.ps)

Radio Bethlehem 2000. (2011). Alternative Energy Uses in Palestine.

(https://www.rb2000.ps/articles/201112.html ).

Rahman, S. (2007). Energy Sources: How conventional and alternate energies are
used. IEEE Power and Energy Magazine, 4 (10): 82-83.