Clean Energy | Pakistan to build six new Nuclear Reactors

[Yzd Khalifa]

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@Aeronaut @Pakistanisage @Zarvan @Armstrong

Pakistan to build six nuclear power plants

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  Nawaz Sharif
  

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced Tuesday that his country will build six civil nuclear power plants.
Speaking at a function, Coastal Power Project K-II and K-III in Karachi, Sharif said the country’s Atomic Energy Commission has identified six sites where civil nuclear power plants could be built, The News International reported.
According to the prime minister, Pakistan would produce 40,000 MW of power from nuclear plants till 2050 and the government’s priority was to start work on power projects to overcome the energy shortage.

Sharif on Tuesday launched the construction of the country’s biggest atomic power plant and vowed to pursue further projects to make nuclear the largest energy source.
The 2,200-megawatt plant is to be built with Chinese technical assistance on the Arabian Sea coast at Paradise Beach, 40 km (25 miles) west of Karachi.

Pakistan already has three operational nuclear plants generating a total of around 740 MW of power and has begun work on a fourth, in addition to the one launched Tuesday.
The government hopes nuclear will ultimately provide a relatively low-cost solution to the power cuts — known euphemistically as “load-shedding” — that blight life in Pakistan.

Mismanagement, corruption and an over-reliance on expensive imported fuels have left the energy sector in dire straits, with hours-long blackouts a daily reality in the summer months.
“This is one of the first steps of our goal of racing toward a load-shedding-free Pakistan,” Sharif told the audience at the site of the plant.

The World Nuclear Association has estimated the cost of the new project at nearly $10 billion.
Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission engineers will work on the project with help from the China Atomic Energy Authority.
As Pakistan is not party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty it is excluded from the international trade in nuclear materials and technology, and can rely only on its neighbor China for help.

Sharif pledged to increase nuclear power generation capacity to 40,000 MW in the long term as part of his energy plan.
A few kilometers further west of the new nuclear power project, an energy park is being built at Gaddani beach in Baluchistan province, with plans for 6,600 MW coal-fired power projects.

 

[Pakistanisage]

Yes @Yzd Khalifa and those will be build by Pakistani Engineers without any Foreign assistance. I am happy and proud of our Nuclear Engineers at our PAEC ( Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission ) for the strides they have made in last 30 years. they are doing a great Job.

By 2030, Pakistan will be producing over 10,000 Megawatt electricity from Nuclear.

Another 30,000 Megawatt from Hydroelectric Dams (more than 10,000 MW existing and over 21,000years MW in next 15 from projects already under construction). This does not take into account the Hydroelectric projects that have been recommended or are being studied for feasibility.

In addition, we hope to convert 12,000 MW existing capacity of Thermal Plants from Oil to Gas.

We are also working on using our indigenous Coal by Gasification of our coal which will further supply Thousands of Megawatt of electricity by this clean energy source without damage to the environment.

Additionally, we have signed contracts with French and German Firms to Build Solar and Wind Plants which will further add thousands of Megawatts to the National Grid.

So we are talking about 60,000 + Megawatts if not more in next 15 years.

Energy Shortages would be a thing of the past for Energy Surplus Nation of Pakistan and that means no more rolling black outs ( or what Pakistanis call Load shedding ).

 

[Kompromat]

Pakistan needs to cooperate with China and Turkey to explore Thorium technology.

China has strong research and development base in regards to Thorium
Pakistan has worked on Thorium which is mainly theoretical
Turkey has the largest known Thorium reserves in the world.

Three nations are developing and need a great deal of energy, it will be a win win for all of us.

 

[PakPrinciples]

Pakistan needs to cooperate with China and Turkey to explore Thorium technology.

There is no point in exploring/researching Thorium technology and I would advise against putting money into it.

There are only a few countries that have the vast majority of the worlds Thorium reserves hence why no one, particularly those with the money to actually perform the research, has any interest in it.

The next big technology will be nuclear fusion and it's what Pakistan needs to get access to. It's safe, clean (don't pose a danger to the environment nor are a strategic threat if they're attacked) and the oceans hold enough feedstock to meet the entire world's current energy needs for 30 million years not to mention our own reserves and resources we can recycle.

 

[Kompromat]

There is no point in exploring/researching Thorium technology and I would advise against putting money into it.

There are only a few countries that have the vast majority of the worlds Thorium reserves hence why no one, particularly those with the money to actually perform the research, has any interest in it.

The next big technology will be nuclear fusion and it's what Pakistan needs to get access to. It's safe, clean (don't pose a danger to the environment nor are a strategic threat if they're attacked) and the oceans hold enough feedstock to meet the entire world's current energy needs for 30 million years not to mention our own reserves and resources we can recycle.

You, have to be kidding me. Thorium is one of the most abundantly found materials in the world. Pakistan has rather large Thorium reserves found in In the Badar zone (Mardan district).

Thorium is clean and cannot be weaponized easily. Nuclear fusion though being researched in Pakistan and the rest of the world can turn out to be a wild goose.

 

[Zarvan]

@Yzd Khalifa akhi this has been posted for couple of days already but yes its good news and both for our energy sector and electricity problem and also we can increase our Nuclear Arsenal to really large numbers yes I know many Pakistanis on this forum will see we would not do that but let them live in dreams

 

[OrionHunter]

So we are talking about 60,000 + Megawatts if not more in next 15 years.

Good! But the cost of producing nuclear reactors for producing 10,000 mW watts of electricity? Fuel costs for nuclear plants are a minor proportion of total generating costs, but capital costs are greater than those for coal-fired plants and much greater than those for gas-fired plants.

Capital costs include the cost of site preparation, construction, manufacture, commissioning and financing a nuclear power plant. Building a large-scale nuclear reactor takes thousands of workers, huge amounts of steel and concrete, thousands of components, and several systems to provide electricity, cooling, ventilation, information, control and communication.

With the capital cost at $6000 per kW, you can calculate the enormous amount needed for constructing nuke power plants to produce 10,000 mW!!

 

[Pakistanisage]

Good! But the cost of producing nuclear reactors for producing 10,000 mW watts of electricity? Fuel costs for nuclear plants are a minor proportion of total generating costs, but capital costs are greater than those for coal-fired plants and much greater than those for gas-fired plants.

Capital costs include the cost of site preparation, construction, manufacture, commissioning and financing a nuclear power plant. Building a large-scale nuclear reactor takes thousands of workers, huge amounts of steel and concrete, thousands of components, and several systems to provide electricity, cooling, ventilation, information, control and communication.

With the capital cost at $6000 per kW, you can calculate the enormous amount needed for constructing nuke power plants to produce 10,000 mW!!

For some STRANGE and UNKNOWN REASON, we like to build more NUCLEAR PLANTS like our neighbor to the EAST who shall remain unnamed.

Practice what you preach.

 

[PakPrinciples]

Pakistan has rather large Thorium reserves found in In the Badar zone (Mardan district).

I've never read a single report that ever mentioned Pakistan containing significant amounts of Thorium let alone how much the deposits actually hold. If you know of a paper that actually states what our proven and/or even inferred reserves are I'll take a look at it and you might be right since it doesn't appear much research has been done on the topic anyways.

However, from what I've read there are only a few countries that hold significant economically extractable deposits of Thorium while the rest hold little to nothing.

Country Reserves (1000 tons)
Turkey 380
Australia 300
India 290
Norway 170
USA 160
Canada 100
South Africa 35
Brazil 16
Other countries 95
World total 1580
Table 24.7. Known world thorium resources in monazite (economically extractable)

It takes about 800 to 1000 kg of Thorium to power a 1 GW power plant and while the byproducts aren't weapons grade they're still harmful to humans (83% of the byproducts become safe within 10 yrs while the remaining 17% become safe after about 350 years).

However, a 1 GW Nuclear Fusion power plant only needs 0.5 kg of deuterium and 1.5kg of lithium while the byproduct is 2 kg of helium which the world is actually running out of and is totally harmless to humans.

Furthermore, any country can extract the fuel they need right out of the ocean with enough to meet the worlds current energy demands for 30 million years. The technology that allows us to do this is making the process cheaper and cheaper.

My view is that all available resources should be put into nuclear fusion research because it's going to help us mine asteroids for minerals, build colonies on the moon/mars, build jets that can fly us around the world for a few dollars a seat and venture beyond our solar system and Thorium reactors will not. The commercial aspects of fusion are far greater than they are for Thorium reactors.

 

[Pakistanisage]

India has 20 Nuclear Plants and 7 more under Construction.

 

[Chak Bamu]

Nuclear energy is very capital intensive. I doubt if Pakistan can easily do it. From where will the money come?

We need a mix of energy choices, led by hydro-electric power generation. It makes absolutely no sense to ignore the most important, cost-effective, and pollution-free source of energy like we have done in Pakistan.

Nuclear Fusion is still under research. Many decades have been spent researching on economical way for exploiting Fusion, with nothing to show for it. In 1989, a couple of scientists in USA claimed to have achieved cold fusion, but nobody could replicate their experiment. That was the only time when fusion was considered viable in living memory.

Throwing money on Nuclear Fusion would be as great a mistake as believing that Nuclear Fusion can actually work in near future. Theory looks good on paper, but it has to be seen to work practically. Unless that happens, no sense in creating hype for Nuclear Fusion.

 

[Kompromat]

@PakPrinciples | Mere bhai, Thorium is not coal, its a radioactive material used to create a reaction in a liquid fuel reactor cell. This is not a 'quantity intensive' material.

No proper studies on Thorium reserves have been conducted in Pakistan so far, however during a recent study published by Qaid-E-Azam University on Oil and Gas extraction through Frecking (Shale) has discovered further deposits of Thorium in Indus basin.

Nuclear energy is very capital intensive. I doubt if Pakistan can easily do it. From where will the money come?

We need a mix of energy choices, led by hydro-electric power generation. It makes absolutely no sense to ignore the most important, cost-effective, and pollution-free source of energy like we have done in Pakistan.

Nuclear Fusion is still under research. Many decades have been spent researching on economical way for exploiting Fusion, with nothing to show for it. In 1989, a couple of scientists in USA claimed to have achieved cold fusion, but nobody could replicate their experiment. That was the only time when fusion was considered viable in living memory.

Throwing money on Nuclear Fusion would be as great a mistake as believing that Nuclear Fusion can actually work in near future. Theory looks good on paper, but it has to be seen to work practically. Unless that happens, no sense in creating hype for Nuclear Fusion.

Diversifying our energy output is a big yes !

 

[OrionHunter]

For some STRANGE and UNKNOWN REASON, we like to build more NUCLEAR PLANTS like our neighbor to the EAST who shall remain unnamed.

Practice what you preach.

Remember 'the neighbor in the East' has an economy 5 times your's and so can afford it!! Don't even think of comparing!

 

[Yzd Khalifa]

Remember 'the neighbor in the East' has an economy 5 times your's and so can afford it!! Don't even think of comparing!

All what they need to do is to wink three times, and big things will be in store.

 

[MohitV]

India has 20 Nuclear Plants and 7 more under Construction.

tat is why we are the 5th largest electricity producing country in the world