China to assist nuclear power plants at Chashma

Islamabad: Pakistan and China have developed a broad-based understanding to enhance co-operation in harnessing nuclear technology for peaceful purposes and Beijing is assisting in setting up a series of nuclear power plants at Chashma.

Pakistan's growing energy needs are becoming an important incentive for China to act as a global player in the field of nuclear power generation, sources further maintained.

There is concern in the Indian media that Pakistan and China may sign a deal similar to that of Indo-US nuclear agreement during President Asif Ali Zardari's ongoing visit, but experts here believe that these stories are designed to spread concern amongst the international community about any such deal in an effort to prevent it from being signed.

However, analysts point out that the US-India deal has opened the field for India to access supplies from 45-nation nuclear suppliers group (NSG), an organ of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), by lifting a 34-year old nuclear trade embargo with India.

The Sino-Pakistan deal, if signed, is unlikely to allow Pakistan to access supplies form the NSG. The Foreign Office spokesman, in a weekly briefing on Friday, stated that Pakistan was not looking for a nuclear deal with China. He added that at present co-operation with China was going well on track and would continue in future.

China has completed a 300MW nuclear power plant at Chashma and is setting up another one in Chashma of the same capacity. The Economic Co-ordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet, on October 14, approved the establishment of an additional two nuclear power plants at Chashma with the help of China in an effort to bridge the demand-supply gap.

There is a broader understanding that Beijing will build six nuclear power plants with installed capacity of 300MW each at the above mentioned site. In May 1965, the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) asked Canadian General Electric to design and build a 137MW power reactor in Karachi (the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant, or Kanupp). It was commissioned in 1971, says a report.

The following year, work began on an ambitious nuclear power plan as part of a larger International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) assessment of the potential role of nuclear power in meeting the energy demands of developing countries, it added.

This led the IAEA and PAEC to produce the 1975 Nuclear Power Planning Study for Pakistan. The plan proposed building of eight 600MWe nuclear power plants between 1982-1990 and nine 600MWe units plus seven 800MW units between 1991-2000.

Chashma was identified as a site for some of these nuclear power plants, the report maintained. In December 1976, Canada withdrew support for the Kanupp reactor and terminated the sale of a nuclear fuel fabrication plant, citing Pakistan's refusal to either sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) or otherwise accept full scope safeguards on its nuclear complex.

The report further said that under the US pressure, France refused to supply a reprocessing plant to Pakistan, and the United States imposed sanctions on Pakistan in 1978, suspending all economic and military aid. These restrictions were further tightened in 1979 to ban all but humanitarian assistance, in the hope of curtailing Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme.

Pakistan's period of relative isolation ended in December 1979 with Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Following the 1981 election of Ronald Reagan as US president, there was a dramatic increase in the US aid and support to Pakistan. This support, amounting to several billion dollars of military and economic aid, came despite Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme. In this new environment, the PAEC resumed its search for nuclear power plants.

In 1982, after a study by the Spanish engineering and consulting company, Sener, Pakistan approved a 1.5 billion-dollar plan for a 937 MWe nuclear power plant to be located at Chashma, to be completed by 1988-89. It