We are critically short on natural gas so gas plant is not an option. We can opt for coal based plants but financing is also in short supply.
Pakistan isn't critically short on Natural gas.
One of the things I liked about the PTI was its energy policy whose plan was to initially increase production from conventional natural gas fields to meet current demand. Once the energy crisis is resolved the economy goes back to growing at about 8% a year (3 to 4% of GDP loss a year is incurred because of the electricity deficit which winds up raising rates for businesses making them less competitive with India or Bangladesh the latter already enjoying EU and US tax, duty and tariff brakes).
For example, Pakistan's conventional natural gas deposits, as of 2012, stood at approximately 26 trillion cubic feet.
At 2012 consumption rates (approximately 1.52 trillion cubic feet a year) the conventional natural gas reserves, assuming no new findings which isn't the case, would last about 17 years.
Pakistan's current shortfall is approximately 4000 MW. A Generac SG200 (i.e. 200KW) natural gas generator consumes around 2600 cubic feet of natural gas an hour at full load so a 4,000 MW power plant (containing 20000 of these generators though obviously the country would use larger scale generators) running 24/7/365 (there are peak demand hours and less electricity is required in the evenings but for simplicity sake we'll just go with this) would require an additional 456 billion cubic feet of natural gas a year so if we add that onto current consumption rates the countries conventional natural gas reserves would last about 13 years.
Since our conventional natural gas fields are already being exploited for electricity the infrastructure necessary for expansion already exists so there should be no problem.
Furthermore, we have immense unconventional natural gas resources that we can also tap.
Pakistan's recoverable shale gas deposits stand at approximately 51 trillion cubic feet, recoverable coal bed methane natural gas stands at approximately 21 trillion cubic feet and the total tight gas deposits stood at approximately 33 trillion cubic feet according to ENI Pakistan (though I am not sure how much of that is recoverable if we go by what we can get from coal bed methane than about 19 trillion cubic feet is recoverable).
If I go by the example I gave previously using the Generac SG200 generator you can run a 25,000 MW power plant 24/7/365 for about 32 years using Pakistan's unconventional natural gas deposits alone (though obviously it would last much longer if we build hydro dams and imo utilize solar energy not to mention the fact that such a plant shouldn't actually need to run all day every day).
Since a combined cycle natural gas plant is the fastest way to add a lot of electricity to the grid the government should be utilizing it first to meet the countries energy requirements. Afterwards when the economy is growing fast again then expand into UCG to utilize the countries large lignite deposits by which time it should have become far cheaper (and can also be used to meet most of our domestic fuel needs so no need to import) and which China has successfully started utilizing (they are also expanding into converting coal to diesel). While the country is exploiting its conventional and unconventional natural gas resources to make them last longer we can expand production from hydro (cheapest source of electricity) and solar (considering the number of sun hours Pakistan gets along with its solar insolation rates this can be very profitable).
Nuclear power is green in the sense that no carbon is released into the atmosphere. Most nuclear plants have long operating life (50 years or more) and do not require expensive imported fuel to run. $8,000 per KW does appear to be very expensive. It is possible that the installations include have spent fuel treatment facilities as well. Besides China is probably giving us long term credit on very favourable terms.
Nuclear is actually one of the most expensive long term sources of electricity.
Based on information from the EIA
New Power Plants Economics Compared
A list from the EIA website
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:X-n_Z8eeL3AJ:www.eia.gov/forecasts/capitalcost/xls/table2.xls+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca
I do not mind Nuclear power but based on what I know and Pakistan's current situation I don't see the need for Nuclear considering how much it costs, how little it adds to the grid and how long it takes for a plant to be constructed by which time the deficit would have simply worsened.
My belief is that we should be expanding natural gas production, get the economy growing again then raise the tax to GDP ratio to 17% (to meet the yearly budget) and add on another 1% for future electricity generation projects.
Once the economy is growing only then should Pakistan even start to think about expanding into nuclear energy.
All this simply makes absolutely no sense to me.