With Pakistan's economy growing tremendously,higher energy consumption and surging pressure on the country's energy resources is a natural corollary of the buoyant economic mood. Rising demand and consumption of energy, particularly oil, outstrips the domestic supply raising the reliance on imports which certainly strains the country's financial resources.
Pakistan produces only 18.3 per cent of the oil it consumes, with major dependence on import of oil. On the other hand, hydropower and coal are perhaps under-utilised today despite significant potential supplies of both in the country.
Considering the national political constraints in the construction of new hydro plants, high generation cost of oil fired power plants, diminishing reserves of natural gas for power generation, political and technical difficulties in the development of available coal reserves for power generation and, above all, the serious CO2 emission issues linked with thermal power plants, Pakistan government has decided to look for other sources of energy including nuclear, wind and solar.
Comparing overall per unit cost of energy generation, the hydro power generation is no doubt the cheapest source of energy, but the potential is ultimately restricted.
The availability is seasonal and the capital costs are very high. Out of the other energy sources available, the unit cost of energy generation by nuclear is less than oil based power generation and alternate sources of energy. This is very critical for Pakistan since thermal power generation is primarily based on imported oil supply. Pakistan has to its credit 35 years of safe nuclear power operations and is ready to embrace nuclear power production confidently.
Considering all these constraints, Pakistan has decided to increase the share of nuclear energy in the total energy mix. Due to various global security issues related to nuclear energy, power generation by this one of the cost-effective sources of energy had been neglected for the last three decades. However, due to serious concerns about the greenhouse effects and the sharp increase in oil prices, the use of nuclear power generation has been revived again. Besides, life extension of operating plants, which is quicker and very cost effective, new nuclear power plants are being constructed and ordered.
Today nuclear energy represents 2.4 per cent of the electricity produced in Pakistan. The energy supply per capita is very low as compared to the world average, thus the demand of electricity is expected to increase widely.
A significant development that happened in the nuclear energy area in Pakistan recently is the restart of the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP) after its life extension for 15 years.
This plant has now become the first CANDU plant in the world re-licensed to operate beyond its nominal designed life of 30 years. It has been connected to the grid of the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation recently, and is generating 75 MW electricity, which will gradually be increased.
Since various safety systems of this pressurised heavy water reactor, which started its commercial operation in 1972, were upgraded and replaced during the re-licensing outages, several tests are being carried out at this power level.
Thereafter, power will be raised gradually up to 100 MW.
"Credit for KANUPP's sustained operation goes to the ingenuity of operational staff and PAEC's indigenization programme," said Chairman Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), Anwar Ali.
He said that 8800 MW power target assigned to PAEC is well within our reach by 2030 and added that six sites are being studied throughout the country for location of plants.
"We are in active contact with multiple sources and friends for negotiations to execute the programmes," Anwar Ali added. He said that the estimated capacity of each plant would be 1000 MW, as the maintenance and operations of the plants is easy and economical, if they are of similar size.
"Karachi was likely to get two more nuclear power plants in the neighbourhood of KANUPP," he said. Regarding the schedule of initiating work on these plants, he said all the preliminary preparatory work was afoot and it is hoped that the works would commence within a few years.
The construction of CHASHMA-II is already underway which would definitely help meet the growing national energy needs.
According to PAEC, KANUPP began to face embargoes imposed by the vendor countries a few years after the beginning of its operation resulting in the denial of supply of fuel, heavy water, spare parts and all kinds of technical support. However, the embargoes turned out to be a blessing in disguise for KANUPP. Safe and sustained operating record of KANUPP, without vendor support, was not possible without a strong self-reliance programme of PAEC.
The development of indigenous reactor fuel was started, followed by the setting up of a number of other facilities at KANUPP eg manpower development, spare parts fabrication, in-service inspection, computers, control and instrumentation support. These facilities enabled KANUPP to continue its safe operation despite lack of foreign help.
The plant has been declared by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as a model of technical cooperation for making tremendous progress in implementing various safety upgrades such as fuel channel inspection and life assessment.
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