Four N-power plants to be built near Kanupp
KARACHI: Four more nuclear power plants will built by the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) near the existing Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (Kanupp) as part of a plan to build more energy units in the country to meet the target of 8,800 megawatts from nuclear energy by 2030.
The chairman of the PAEC, Dr Ansar Pervez, said this in his address at the Kanupp Institute of Nuclear Power Engineering (KINPOE) convocation 2009 held here on Tuesday.
Dr Ansar saw better prospects for nuclear energy plants because of what he called a renaissance of nuclear power in todays world. The other reasons for the revival of nuclear power plants, he said, were the good performance of more than 400 already operating plants all over the world, uncertain oil prices, and international concerns over carbon dioxide emission.
Nuclear power plants do not emit greenhouse gases and they have showed that they are more cost-effective, safe and reliable, he claimed.
From its early days, the generation of electrical energy through nuclear power has been one of the PAECs primary objectives. For this purpose, it established nuclear power plants and a complex network of associated fuel cycle technology. It has also been providing benefits of sophisticated nuclear techniques to the medical and agriculture sectors, he said.
He said that the cooperation for a peaceful application of nuclear energy between Pakistan and China was progressing because of good relations between the two countries.
He said that the PAEC had been assigned the task of generating 8,800MW of nuclear electricity by 2030 and some of the new plants would be built near Kanupp.
We have already purchased 585 acres near Kanupp to build additional plants. Although the cost of the land amounting to Rs350 million has already been paid, and the lease agreement was signed in August 2008, the mutation and demarcation of the land have not been carried out yet, he said.
Dr Ansar said that he had requested the authorities concerned to expedite the case of the land so that PAEC could start development work at the site. He said that based on the experience gained from the reverse osmosis plant, Kanupp was now working as a consultant for 100,000 gallon per day capacity reverse osmosis plant at Gwadar.
The PAEC could also offer its technical assistance in setting up large-sized desalination plants, he said.
Dr Ansar said that Kanupp was setting up a nuclear desalination demonstration plant with the capacity of 400,000 gallons per day, which is indigenously built in PAEC with some assistance from the IAEA. We can also offer technical assistance to the Karachi city government for its planned 50 million gallons per day desalination plant, he added.
He also pointed out that among all developing countries; Pakistan took the lead in the generation of electricity from nuclear power plants by setting up the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant.
It has been kept operational despite many embargoes imposed on us. It is now operating on extended life through modifications and safety retrofits done entirely by our own experts, he added.
He also enumerated the services rendered by the PAEC towards the socioeconomic uplift of the country by running 13 cancer hospitals across the country with five more under construction, agricultural, biotechnology and genetic engineering institutes and a series of human resource development and goal-oriented research centres.
He said that PAECs agriculture and biotechnology institutes were contributing at the national level by developing crop varieties that have higher resistance to disease, mature early and give higher yields.
The vice-chancellor of the NED University, Abdul Kalam, who was the chief guest at the convocation, awarded degrees of MSc nuclear engineering to 86 successful graduates of the 13th and 14th batches along with merit certificates and gold medals.
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