What is the status of this plutonium reactor in Khushaab? Why Pakistani Govt. doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to complete this project.? I believe it started in 2000 and still the roof is not complete. It seems to me most of our nuclear expertise and emphasis is on uranium based technology vs. plutonium base.
Re: 1000 megawatt Plutonium Reactor
I think Pakistani Government is more focused on the 6 nuclear reactors that China has offered.
Re: 1000 megawatt Plutonium Reactor
I think Pakistani Government is more focused on the 6 nuclear reactors that China has offered.
I believe this one is being built with Chinese assistance too but has been under construction for the past 7 years.
Re: 1000 megawatt Plutonium Reactor
This one is for 40 - 50 plutonium bombs each year, still under construction. The remaining 6 are for power...
Re: 1000 megawatt Plutonium Reactor
Well it’s suppose to be a secret nuclear facility that’s why Pakistan haven’t been making any announcements about it.
The reactor, which reportedly will be capable of producing enough plutonium for as many as 50 bombs each year, was brought to light on Sunday by independent analysts who spotted the partially completed plant in commercial-satellite photos. Snow said the administration had “known of these plans for some time.”
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/24/AR2006072400995.html)
So nstar777… Shhhhhhhh
Re: 1000 megawatt Plutonium Reactor
Dragon Bhai! I think they should finish the Roof a.s.a.p. so that all these peekers and pokers stop sniffing around and making assumptions.
Re: 1000 megawatt Plutonium Reactor
Well keeping this facility a secret and at the same time letting others peek from above could mean eaither they're planning to sell some of the nukes to others, while at the same time dettering others by making them guess how many nukes Pakistan might have.
Re: 1000 megawatt Plutonium Reactor
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/070507/kyodo/d8ovdvrg0.html
Pakistan building nuke plant that can yield weapons-grade plutonium
(Kyodo) _ Pakistan is constructing its first commercial-scale nuclear reprocessing plant that would make it possible to produce weapons-grade plutonium for its nuclear weapons program, according to informed sources.
Pakistani scientists and vendors of plant components are working on the reprocessing plant to be installed in a building originally constructed to house a French-manufactured plant in a deal that was canceled in the 1970s.
The site is located in Kundian in southern Punjab, about 200 kilometers southwest of Islamabad, the sources said.
** “The reprocessing plant is nearing completion,” one of the sources said. **
In the $150 million contract signed in 1974, Pakistan was to construct the building and France was to supply a plant capable of reprocessing 100 tons of spent fuel.
But France canceled the deal in 1978 under pressure from the United States, which suspected Pakistan would use it to reprocess spent fuel from the Canadian-supplied Karachi Nuclear Power Plant to obtain plutonium for its nuclear weapons program.
By the time France reneged on the deal, the French company SGN, a major player in nuclear engineering, had supplied Pakistan with blueprints for the plant and the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission had constructed the building.
The PAEC discussed the idea of building its own reprocessing plant to be installed in the building, but the government opposed the idea because Pakistan was then working on a uranium enrichment program to achieve a nuclear weapons capability.
The country conducted six underground nuclear tests based on enriched uranium in May 1998, and the government has since allowed construction of the nuclear reprocessing plant.
Pakistan launched its nuclear weapons program in 1972 and assigned the task of uranium enrichment to the Khan Research Laboratories, headed by now-disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, and plutonium reprocessing to the PAEC, respectively.
Pakistan has already built an indigenous 50-megawatt heavy-water research reactor in Khushab and is building another one with the same output there.
The nuclear reactor went into operation in 1998 and its spent fuel is being processed at the small laboratory-scale reprocessing plant called the New Lab, located in Islamabad.
The sources said the PAEC has developed in-house capability to manufacture key components of the commercial-scale reprocessing plant while some parts have been outsourced to vendors in the private sector.
Government officials have maintained that the reprocessing plant is central to a PAEC plan to establish several nuclear power plants with a total capacity of 8,500 MW by 2025.
The reprocessing plant and the research reactors in Khushab are also central to a bid by Pakistan, like several other nuclear powers, to accumulate as much fissile material as possible before the finalization of the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty being negotiated at the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.
The treaty, which is a sequence to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, would ban the production of fissile material, the core for the development of nuclear weapons.
A nuclear power plant uses natural or slightly enriched uranium as fuel and when it is burnt it produces plutonium, while some of the uranium remains unburnt. A reprocessing plant is used to separate plutonium and unburnt uranium.
While plutonium can be used as fuel in breeder reactors or can be used to make nuclear weapons, unburnt uranium is again used to make fuel for ordinary nuclear reactors.
Re: 1000 megawatt Plutonium Reactor
Lately there has been reports one by ISIS that Pak is building another plutonium reactor in addition th 1000MW in construction…
PAEC to design own nuclear energy plantsPublished: Thursday, 21 June, 2007, 09:22 AM Doha Time
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) has decided to establish an Engineering Design Organisation (EDO) for the indigenous development of nuclear power plants (NPPs) in the country.
Dawn newspaper reported yesterday that China had offered Pakistan four to six NPPs, which would not fulfil its energy requirements. Therefore, it was decided that self-reliance in nuclear technology was the only way out of the energy crisis.
The EDO would have presence in Islamabad, Karachi and Chashma. The PAEC has formulated a comprehensive plan to make the EDO a commercial entity, in line with similar Chinese, South Korean and Indian organisations. A five-year-plan (2008-12) is estimated to cost Rs2.2bn.
This would be the first step towards indigenising nuclear power technology in Pakistan, sources said. The EDO would be responsible for indigenisation in design, engineering and construction of NPPs, development of standardised NPPs, lifetime support to NPP operations and other facilities.
The new organisation would consist of three directorates headed by the director-general Directorate of Nuclear Power Engineering Plant (DNPEP). The directorate would undertake designs and analyses of nuclear reactor cores and fuels, management of special system development, vibration analysis and software development.
The DNPEP would also be responsible to develop structures for site selection and evaluation, design and analysis of NPP buildings and development of local construction industry.
At present, the fuel mix in power generation is dominated by fossil fuel (50% gas and 20% oil). But since fossil fuels depleted quickly and its price in international markets was vulnerable to fluctuations, the PAEC wrote to higher authorities saying: “In order to secure energy it is imperative to diversify the fuel mix in power generation.”
The Energy Security Action Plan (ESAP) has envisaged increasing the share of nuclear power from 0.8% to 4.2% and generating 88,000MW of electricity by 2030.
For additional power generation requirements, emphasis would be on developing indigenous resources, including hydro, coal, natural gas and nuclear sources.
The PAEC informed authorities that it was planning to add about 1,260MW through hydel power, 880MW from alternate energy, 4,860MW from gas, 900MW from coal and 160MW from oil by 2010. – Internews