The nuclear option for power
Thursday, 27 September 2007
Bangladesh's dream of having a nuclear power plant may at last come true. To this end, it will submit a comprehensive proposal to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) by the middle of next month. The energy adviser, after his return from attending the 51st General Conference of the Geneva-based international nuclear watchdog IAEA has told the press that the head of the Agency Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei has assured him of providing assistance to Bangladesh for setting up a nuclear power plant. On this score, a high powered IAEA team will visit Dhaka next December to assess safeguard and security issues relating to installation of such a project in the country. In this connection, an IAEA delegation had also visited earlier in June to fix the user's criteria for setting up a nuclear power plant at Ruppur in Pabna.
But installing a nuclear power plant is a very big deal. The cost of such a project is forbidding and the time needed for the construction of a nuclear power plant is also rather long. Can Bangladesh even fancy such a costly venture, let alone build one? Installation of a 600 MW nuclear power plant, for example, costs over one billion US dollar. And then there is the complex issue of accessing the right technology from choosing the appropriate type of reactor to the disposal of nuclear wastes. The head of Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission said the government wants to build a nuclear power plant with a capacity between 600 and 1000 megawatts. The good news is that Russia has agreed to provide the technological support as well as other technical assistance in this respect, while the South Korean government has demonstrated its interest in bearing the 60 per cent cost of such a project.
The present idea of establishing a nuclear power plant has not dropped in just out of the blue. The idea of such a plant was first conceived more than four decades back in the pre-independence times. A site for the project was selected at Ruppur where some infrastructures were also built. But the project was later mothballed, for reasons best known to the then rulers of the land. Even after the independence, the whole idea remained dormant and the need for nuclear plant to generate power was never considered with due seriousness. Later, the idea of the project sank into oblivion.
Now after all these years, the idea has again occupied the centre stage of our national concern. But there is, however, a world of difference between the yearning for a nuclear power plant in the early sixties of the last century and that of the present one. In the earlier case, nuclear research and harnessing it for producing power was a very fashionable idea. Nuclear science and technology was then placed at the frontiers of human knowledge. So, the whole idea of having a nuclear power plant was a very thrilling one then. In the present context, however, the proposition of building a nuclear plant by a poor developing country like Bangladesh is no more a romantic idea. On the contrary, it has now turned out to be the most reasonable answer to the problem of looming power crunch facing the nation.
As the power adviser has said, Bangladesh has little reserve of gas to fire the power generation units. The skyrocketing price of fuel oil in the international market is not only going out of the reach of a poor country like Bangladesh, the global reserve of hydrocarbon is also depleting fast. So, the pursuit of a sustainable and cheaper option of power has taken global proportions. Against this backdrop, the importance of nuclear power has again occupied the centre stage internationally.
But installing a nuclear power plant is a very big deal. The cost of such a project is forbidding and the time needed for the construction of a nuclear power plant is also rather long. Can Bangladesh even fancy such a costly venture, let alone build one? Installation of a 600 MW nuclear power plant, for example, costs over one billion US dollar. And then there is the complex issue of accessing the right technology from choosing the appropriate type of reactor to the disposal of nuclear wastes. The head of Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission said the government wants to build a nuclear power plant with a capacity between 600 and 1000 megawatts. The good news is that Russia has agreed to provide the technological support as well as other technical assistance in this respect, while the South Korean government has demonstrated its interest in bearing the 60 per cent cost of such a project.
The present idea of establishing a nuclear power plant has not dropped in just out of the blue. The idea of such a plant was first conceived more than four decades back in the pre-independence times. A site for the project was selected at Ruppur where some infrastructures were also built. But the project was later mothballed, for reasons best known to the then rulers of the land. Even after the independence, the whole idea remained dormant and the need for nuclear plant to generate power was never considered with due seriousness. Later, the idea of the project sank into oblivion.
Now after all these years, the idea has again occupied the centre stage of our national concern. But there is, however, a world of difference between the yearning for a nuclear power plant in the early sixties of the last century and that of the present one. In the earlier case, nuclear research and harnessing it for producing power was a very fashionable idea. Nuclear science and technology was then placed at the frontiers of human knowledge. So, the whole idea of having a nuclear power plant was a very thrilling one then. In the present context, however, the proposition of building a nuclear plant by a poor developing country like Bangladesh is no more a romantic idea. On the contrary, it has now turned out to be the most reasonable answer to the problem of looming power crunch facing the nation.
As the power adviser has said, Bangladesh has little reserve of gas to fire the power generation units. The skyrocketing price of fuel oil in the international market is not only going out of the reach of a poor country like Bangladesh, the global reserve of hydrocarbon is also depleting fast. So, the pursuit of a sustainable and cheaper option of power has taken global proportions. Against this backdrop, the importance of nuclear power has again occupied the centre stage internationally.