4500 MW is a stretch and not sure how long will it take to get there.
We have tied US hands by insisting on “not signing NPT” and yet asking for loans to buy nuclear power plants.
We say we want India like deal. The problem is that we don’t have fing money, and India is rolling in foreign reserves thanks to their pro-US awam and business class.
So we don’t have money, and thus do not have leverage that India and China enjoy when planning to buy nuclear plants.
China has already bought 5 large 1000 MW each plants from the US. Why because it is paying HARD CASH in $$$$ from its trillion dollar rich piggy bank.
Indians do not have triilion dollar piggy bank, but still they can easily pay 10-20 billion dollars cash for their nuclear purchases.
We on the other hand want to get the same deal as China and India but we show up with a completely empty kushkol.
Without large nuclear plants from the West, all our measures based on dammed up water, and imported “read Very very expensive” oil are doomed to fail.
Why?
Water in Pakistani dams is meant for irrigation. It produces electricity ONLY when we need water for our precious crops.
oil was affordable at rates 30-40 dollars a barrel. Those days are long gone. And with prices hovering at double and in some cases triple the amount, there is no way in hell that we can easily pay cash to buy oil.
Other short term measures like producing some electricity form new dams like KBD and Bhasha are good 10-15 years away.
And thanks to our tung-nazri and petty ethno-fascism, thar coal is also lying dormant for at least another 10-15 years.
Thus the bottom line is that US AID would help, and the guy Shah is saying the right things.
But the help will be limited because we have tied US admn hands due to our terrible internal and external policies, and lack of support from US business lobby that can’t come visit Pakistan and we can’t give them cash.
If we had cash, we would tell US AID to take their money and spend elsewhere in poor countries.
But unfortunately we have made ourselves poor and thus dependent on the LIMITED dole outs from people like Shah.