Bangladesh plans to set up its first nuclear power plant at a cost of over one billion dollars to ease economically damaging electricity shortages which have sparked riots, an official said Monday.
"The government has in principle agreed to set up a 600-1,000 megawatt power plant in the northern district of Pabna," the head of the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission, Shafiqul Islam Bhuiyan, told AFP. The plan for the plant in the Muslim-majority nation of 144 million people will be submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) next month.
The facility would cost Bangladesh between one billion and 1.5 billion dollars, he said, adding that it was expected to go into production by 2015. "We will submit our plan to the IAEA by October 15 seeking technical assistance and an IAEA technical team will visit the plant site and discuss the issue with the authorities here," he added. Impoverished Bangladesh is already a signatory to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.
Its existing power plants depend on gas reserves and it is under pressure to find alternative sources of energy amid worries those reserves will be exhausted by 2015.
It also faces massive electricity shortages, which have hit its booming textile industry. Bangladesh is capable of generating 3,000 megawatts at peak times, some 2,000 megawatts short of actual demand. Last year, violence over power cuts in a northern Bangladesh town left at least 20 people dead in clashes between police and farmers who had demanded increased electricity for irrigation.
The World Bank has estimated that Bangladesh needs 10 billion dollars in investment to improve its power supply over the next decade. A military-backed government took over in Bangladesh in January after a state of emergency was imposed. It has pledged to hold elections by late 2008 after implementing reforms to clean up the nation's corrupt politics.