Pakistan to Set Up 10 Nuclear Power Plants
Sep 24 - BBC Monitoring South Asia
Pakistan will install 10 nuclear power plants in toto for which six sites
have been selected to make possible "the mission impossible" to increase
capacity to generate 8,800 MW of nuclear energy in over 22 years time, a
senior government official told The News.
"The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) has selected six sites on the
basis of the Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority (PNRA) and the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)." According to a senior official,
the PAEC have selected six sites for installation of more nuclear power
plants (NPPs) that include 1) Qadirabad-Bulloki (QB) link canal near
Qadirabad Headworks; 2) Dera Ghazi Khan (DG) canal near Tuansa barrage, 3)
Taunsa-Punjnad (TP) canal near Multan; 4) Nara canal near Sukkur, 5) Pat
Feeder canal near Guddu and 6) Kabul river near Nowshera.
These sites are in addition to the Chashma site where four nuclear plants
will be installed. The other nuclear power plants would be installed at
sites selected by the PAEC." "Objectives of the site selection are to
determine all natural and man-induced hazards at a site which could
jeopardise the safety of the NPP; reject a site if an engineering solution
is not available to mitigate effects of any hazard and establish
design-based parameters.
Under the strategy to achieve the target, Islamabad is to seek from Beijing
the fuel technology for future nuclear power plants during the forthcoming
visit of President Zardari to China that is to take place somewhere by the
mid of next month.
"Pakistan that is going to install two more nuclear power plants at Chashma
which are to be known as C-3 and C-4. These power plants will cost over
139bn rupees, including a foreign exchange component of 99.538bn rupees."
The country has also planned to establish a nuclear power fuel complex (NPFC)
at a cost of 51.298bn rupees to locally fabricate fuel that will be used for
the future nuclear power plants in the country. The Nuclear Power Fuel
Complex is under implementation that consists of five components that
include Chemical Processing Plants, Enrichment Plant, Seamless Tube Plant-1;
Fuel Fabrication Plant; and Nuclear Fuel Testing Plant.
To achieve the target, authorities concerned also made a plan to develop
manpower to materialise the country's nuclear power programme. "We have, to
this effect, initiated a capacity building program of paramount importance
at a cost of 491.42m rupees, including foreign exchange component of 166.70m
rupees," the official said.
The government needs trained and qualified professionals to collaborate in
the design and construction of more nuclear power plants to generate 8,800
MW of electricity. "Practically, we need 200-300 professionals per plant and
an overhead of 600-800 centrally placed professionals to participate in the
project management, design, engineering construction and installation of the
nuclear power plants."
"The currently available manpower for this purpose is less than 150
persons." To a question, the official said selected professionals would also
be provided sufficient competency in Chinese language to enable them to
communicate with vendors and manufacturers in China.
They would also be provided some on-the-job hands-on training in the Chinese
nuclear industry especially those related to manufacturing. To a question,
the official said the PAEC has planned to recruit 400 persons during the
next five years at the rate of 80 persons per year and keep them under
training for a period of 18-20 months.
"The training program of these persons will primarily consist of teaching
them technical Chinese languages. And the services of NUML (National
University of Modern Language) specialists will be used for this purpose."
The official also disclosed that the said personnel would also be provided
some nuclear power plants orientation and those who are not well-versed with
Chinese language and in orientation courses will be sent for on-job training
in China for up to four months depending upon their area of expertise and
the availability of the training location.
Originally published by The News website, Islamabad, in English 24 Sep 08.
(c) 2008 BBC Monitoring South Asia. Provided by ProQuest
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