A nuclear Karachi?

This refers to the editorial, ‘A nuclear Karachi?’ (August 25). The editorial has ignored that we have an impeccable record of operating nuclear power plants for more than four decades. The two reactors to be installed at Karachi are based on the third-generation version of pressurised water reactors based on the western technology developed by China as the Advanced China Pressurised (ACP-1000) nuclear reactor. This reactor has passed the IAEA generic reactor safety review (GRSR). Its design has been validated through detailed experiments and is safe and reliable. It has a series of barriers to keep radiation inside the plant such as a combination of active and passive systems, a single-stack layout and 177 nuclear fuel assemblies.
The plant design has double containment structure with an enhanced value of 0.3g (unit of shaking or acceleration) that can sustain an earthquake of roughly over 8 magnitude. The containment structure can withstand the crash of a fighter bomber jet, an earthquake right under the building and other natural disasters. Also, any threat to the proposed facilities from tsunami has been ruled out since the plants are being built at 12-meter above sea level, whereas maximum waves by tsunami is 7-meter above sea level. Nuclear power has low per unit cost of generation, with the current average cost Rs6.35 per kWh to the National Transmission and Despatch Company. The levelised generation cost of the new 1,000MWe plant will be Rs9.59/kWh.
Hussain Siddiqui
Islamabad