http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/index.html
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) Chairman Pervez Butt says 10 to 12 new nuclear power plants will be built in the next few years to meet energy requirements of Pakistan.
"In the present day competitive era, each nation has to carve out its own destiny from available resources and the PAEC has followed this self-reliance path to achieve successes in the domains of national security, agriculture, cancer treatment, nuclear energy and industrial support services," Butt said while addressing the prize distribution ceremony of the National Engineering Robotic Contest 2005, organized by the College of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering (EME), National University of Science and Technology, Islamabad, and during an informal talks with reporters.
He said the PAEC has, on self-help basis, conducted research in different fields and proved its worth in self-reliance and proficiency. "We have adopted the path of self reliance for our survival in this high speed and competitive era." Butt said the government has planned to produce 8,800 megawatts of electricity in the next twenty-five years.
He said the strength of the Karachi nuclear power plant is being constantly enhanced.
"CHASNUPP-1 is entirely being operated by our own engineers with capacity factor higher than 95 percent, which is one of the highest in the world. With a safe and successful experience of 34 years, we have planned to produce 8,800 megawatts of nuclear electricity," Butt said.
He said the PAEC’s multidisciplinary high-tech nation building programme aiming at indigenous solutions needed human resources carrying most advanced know-how, which was not available from conventional universities.
"We had to evolve this through our own educational and training institutions like PIEAS, KANUPP Institute of Nuclear Engineering, Computer Training Centre and many others."
He commended the innovative ideas of participating teams in the design of fire fighting robots, and said the PAEC was the first to develop indigenous robots in the country for the running and maintenance of nuclear power plants and other path-breaking technologies. He offered PAEC’s full support to the participating institutions for development of industrial robots.
The PAEC chief said following the withdrawal of all avenues of support by the vendor countries for KANUPP after 1974 explosion by India, the PAEC operated the power plant with its own manpower and technical resources through innovative working.
"We have manufactured nuclear fuel for this plant and it has now been renovated to extend its life by other 15 years, employing local resources."
Butt said the PAEC was pioneer in Pakistan in the domains of information technology, lasers, instrumentation and controls. "We are running 13 cancer hospitals with five more under construction and our research efforts have succeeded to evolve more than 47 high yield crop varieties fetching billion of additional income to the farmers."
EME college commandant Brig Syed Jamal Shahid said on the occasion that the purpose of holding Robotic contests is to improve the practical grasp of students on many real world problems.
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8800 from 10 plants. that makes less than a 1000 MW each. the only reason i see for 10 plants is to decrease the transmission loss. plants in different parts of the country also will be a good teaching labs. get ready to see lot more nuke engineers people.