I have blogged about the Chinese project to construct two nuclear reactors in Karachi, Pakistan before. I decided to delve more deeply into the subject because I am very concerned about the safety of this project.
Pakistan and China have a long history of nuclear cooperation. It is believed that China helped Pakistan develop nuclear technology in the 1990s after India tested an atomic bomb. There is deep hostility between China and India as well as hostility between Pakistan and India. Apparently China was working on the enemy of my enemy is my friend principle. Neither India nor Pakistan have signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. This makes it difficult for either to purchase nuclear technology on the open international market. Currently, global nuclear suppliers are struggling with the question of how to sell nuclear reactors to India while preventing India from diverting the technology to use in their nuclear weapons program. Japan recently gave up and said that they would sell reactors to India without any guarantees. China is the only possible source for Pakistani reactors at the moment.
There is currently fierce competition among exporters of nuclear reactors for customers. So far, China has not found any buyers other than Pakistan. They are working on using financing of the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant project in England in return for being allowed to construct a demonstration reactor in Bradwell, England. The reactor design that China is selling to Pakistan is a Chinese version of a French prototype that they call the ACC-1000 or Hualong-1. So far, it is only a design and none have been built. Pakistani critics of the project point out that Pakistan bought four Chinese reactors in the 1990s that had technical problems that ultimately had to be dealt with by nuclear experts from other nations.
The Chinese reactors for Karachi are going to be built on a beach fifteen miles from the downtown of Pakistan's biggest city. Safety experts recommend that nuclear reactors be built in low population areas with less than five hundred people per square mile. The Karachi reactors will be in an area with over six thousand people per square mile or more than ten times the recommended population density. Pakistani critics of the project say that construction of these untested reactors in Karachi which is prone to tsunamis is an unacceptable threat to the people who live there. There is an offshore fault in the area that has generated big tsunamis in the past. If there was a quake, the tidal wave would hit Karachi in 90 minutes, far to little time to do anything about protecting the reactors on the beach. Activists managed to get a stay from a court which temporarily halted the reactor project.
The Pakistani government intervened and construction of the reactors has been resumed on the grounds of national security. The government pointed out that Karachci which contains twenty million people has acute shortages of electricity. In the last month, over a thousand people died in a heat wave and the public is pressing for more electricity of provide power for cooling systems. The China National Nuclear Cooperation company is due to complete the project in five years.
This situation is a recipe for disaster. If there is a major accident at the nuclear plant under construction, there would be no possible way to evacuate the twenty million people in Karachi. The repercussions of such an accident would spread far beyond Pakistan and deal a major blow to the global nuclear industry.
Karachi Nuclear Power Complex:
