Sharif Launches Pakistan's Largest Nuclear Power Plant

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Date : November 27, 2013   

The 2,200 MW atomic power plant will be built near Karachi with Chinese technical assistance.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday inaugurated the construction of Pakistan’s biggest atomic power plant and vowed to pursue further projects to make nuclear power the largest energy source in the country.

The 2,200-megawatt plant will be built with Chinese technical assistance on the Arabian Sea coast at Paradise Beach, 40 kilometers 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 power will ultimately provide a relatively low-cost solution to chronic loadshedding. 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 towards a loadshedding-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. However, as Pakistan is not party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it is excluded from 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 Balochistan province, with plans for 6,600 MW coal-fired power projects.

Source: http://newsweekpakistan.com/sharif-launches-pakistans-largest-nuclear-power-plant/