Govt move on 2nd nuclear power plant on way
Sunday, 17 January 2010
Mehdi Musharraf Bhuiyan
Construction of a second nuclear power plant is in government pipeline in line with the one at Ruppur, the pace of groundwork on which is moving in earnest, reliable sources disclosed Thursday.
The country is poised to have a series of nuclear power plants in the coming decade under its long-term energy policy.
"The 1000 MW power plant, which will be set up at the same site of the nuclear power plant project at Ruppur, may see the daylight by 2014 when the construction of the first plant would hopefully be at the final stage," a high level government official told the FE.
According to sources, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at a recent cabinet meeting came up with the idea of a second power plant at the Ruppur site while mooting several such nuclear power plants to be built in various regions of the country by the end of the decade.
"The idea of a second nuclear power plant was conceived after it was found that only one such single power plant would never be enough for meeting the government's target of fulfilling 10 per cent of the country's total energy consumption through nuclear power by 2020," the earlier mentioned official added.
The concept of an additional nuclear power plant comes up at a point, when the implementation of the first nuclear power plant project has remained mostly on paper, with the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) now reportedly conducting separate site safety studies on the project, observers feel.
Over the last few months, however, there have been some fresh initiatives on the part of the government to expedite the setting up of what is supposed to be the country's first nuclear power plant at Ruppur in north-western Pabna with a capacity of 1000 MW.
During May last year, Bangladesh signed an MoU with Russia in this regard, while there have also been talks with China and South Korea for necessary technical support. Although the project is at its very initial stage, the authorities are expecting the first nuclear power plant to be completed by 2016.
Construction of a second nuclear power plant is in government pipeline in line with the one at Ruppur, the pace of groundwork on which is moving in earnest, reliable sources disclosed Thursday.
The country is poised to have a series of nuclear power plants in the coming decade under its long-term energy policy.
"The 1000 MW power plant, which will be set up at the same site of the nuclear power plant project at Ruppur, may see the daylight by 2014 when the construction of the first plant would hopefully be at the final stage," a high level government official told the FE.
According to sources, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at a recent cabinet meeting came up with the idea of a second power plant at the Ruppur site while mooting several such nuclear power plants to be built in various regions of the country by the end of the decade.
"The idea of a second nuclear power plant was conceived after it was found that only one such single power plant would never be enough for meeting the government's target of fulfilling 10 per cent of the country's total energy consumption through nuclear power by 2020," the earlier mentioned official added.
The concept of an additional nuclear power plant comes up at a point, when the implementation of the first nuclear power plant project has remained mostly on paper, with the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) now reportedly conducting separate site safety studies on the project, observers feel.
Over the last few months, however, there have been some fresh initiatives on the part of the government to expedite the setting up of what is supposed to be the country's first nuclear power plant at Ruppur in north-western Pabna with a capacity of 1000 MW.
During May last year, Bangladesh signed an MoU with Russia in this regard, while there have also been talks with China and South Korea for necessary technical support. Although the project is at its very initial stage, the authorities are expecting the first nuclear power plant to be completed by 2016.