Ahmad Khan and Beenish Altaf
‘It's no secret that we live in a 24/7 society’ that is full of risks.
In fact, Pakistanis usually take risks in order to find quick solutions of their
lingering problems. In addition to my contention, people in Pakistan usually
don’t care at large about the safety of their lives, and frequently indulge
themselves in greater problems while taking risks. Actually, our mode of
survival pivots around risks, and we neglect certain aspects of safety of our
lives. For example, I saw people usually attempt phone calls while driving a
car, as a result sometime this resulted into serious accidents and usually lead
to loss of innocent lives. In reality, this is certain phenomenon all around
the world. People don’t care about their safety. But, human civilization teaches
us to care about our lives, and humans learn from their mistakes, and try to
improve their life style in manner with less degree of risk with necessary
precautionary measures. On the contrary, risks are not taken in nuclear
industry. Risks lead to disasters, but in nuclear field every bit of activity
is carefully monitored and dealt with great care.
Technology is overall neutral, which means it
has some positive aspects as well as some negative effects. Here, I want to
quote Albert Einstein famous saying about technology that “It has become
appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.” Taking this
realism into account, one can envisage that nuclear technology, if not properly
handled, can have disastrous effects on the human civilization. Any nuclear disaster can annihilate entire
human civilization in the disaster hit area. Nuclear Technology for peaceful
purposes is a reality, and no one can deny the fact that there are more than 430
nuclear reactors, which are currently operating across the world. In fact,
countries like Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordon etc. are the aspirant of
this technology without having adequate, trained and skillful human resources
in their infant nuclear industry. Especially, the developed nation, who’s aspiration are high,
but they have their legitimate right of acquiring civil nuclear technology to
utilize it for future energy production at home. On the other hand, Pakistan
has already a well-establish nuclear industry. It has three nuclear power
plants generating power, and two more nuclear power plants are under
construction at Chasma. Moreover, it is building two new nuclear power plants
at its coastal city of Karachi, which will able to produce 2 GW power till
2019. In fact, their ground breaking ceremony has already been took place at
their proposed site. Karachi is being the place where the foundation stone of
Pakistan’s nuclear power industry was laid, when KANUPP-1 was constructed.
Right now, some nuclear pessimists in Pakistan
are debating over some theoretical threats posed to these two nuclear power
plants. They believe that nuclear plants at Karachi can be hit by a Tsunami or
an earthquake in future. They also advocate that their design is not sufficiently
meeting the international standards. These are some of the leading arguments
they are currently making against the construction of these nuclear power
plants. The Chinese model of AP-1000 are designed and approved by an American (Westinghouse
Electric Company) with better safety mechanism. As far as Tsunami and earthquake
are concerned, the probability is once in half of a century.
Substantially, Karachi is lucky enough, not to
face any such natural disasters in past 70 years, despite the fact that
earthquakes are frequent in Pakistan as of 2005 earthquake that killed more
than 100,000 people. Similarly, floods are also common in Pakistan, like 2010
super flood, which almost made the entire map of Pakistan filled with water.
However, here I once again stay with my contention that human survival pivots
around risks and sometime the furry of nature pose great risk to human life. But
it is human art of survival, which always overcomes these risks. It is the
strength of humans to learn from their past mistake, correct them to live a
progressive life.
As far as nuclear disasters are concerned, it
is obvious that ‘Three Mile Island’ accident was due to technical fault in the
coolant of the nuclear reactor, which caused the melting of the core. Subsequently,
it caused lethal radiation in the atmosphere in the disaster affected area.
However, the disaster didn’t cause any significant human causality. Likewise,
Chernobyl nuclear accident was due to the flawed design of the nuclear reactor
as well as inadequate personnel handling the entire operations of the nuclear
reactor. Both of the nuclear disasters were caused either from the
malfunctioning of the reactor parts or by the faulty design of the nuclear plants.
However, Fukushima disaster only involves Tsunami, which turned off the backup
generators, which were supposed to provide electricity to the core in case of a
black out at the nuclear plant. After Fukushima, nuclear safety has become a
major part of the global nuclear discourse apart from nuclear security debate.
However, after previous two nuclear disasters certain lessons were learn in
order to correct the mistakes. This involves the revamping of the entire safety
mechanism of the nuclear plants in United States after Three Mile Island
accident, and correction and modification of Soviet designed nuclear plants in
and outside former Soviet Union especially in Europe. Likewise, the Fukushima
accident also left with some key lessons to be learnt.
Pakistan also realized
the opportunity to learn these lessons, and I strongly believe that the
Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) and Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory
Authority (PNRA) have strongly contemplated these lessons into their safety
policies. There are two examples which need to be highlighted here, which show
PAEC’ level of commitment toward the safety of our nuclear plants. One is,
Pakistan has conducted ‘Stress Tests’ of all its operating nuclear plants. And
one is the shutting down one of its nuclear plant for one and half year, when
one of its backup generators went out of order. They didn’t take any risk and
the plant did not go for generation until the backup facilities was not fully
restored. Likewise, Pakistan’s nuclear reactors are under IAEA safeguards
fulfilling all IAEA standards.
The Rationale behind the expansion of
Pakistan’s nuclear program is the lingering problem of energy crisis, which
impinges upon our national security. There is a gap of 5000 MW in the demand
and supply chain of power in the country. Pakistan’s energy needs are exponentially
growing, and it is predicted that the future demand of power will rise up to
32000 MW till 2018. The construction of these plants at Karachi will be
complete till 2019, and they will start pouring 2 GW of power in the national
grid. Similarly, the expansion of nuclear plants till 2030 will enable Pakistan
to produce more 7000-8000 MW of electricity from its nuclear plants. In
conclusion, nuclear energy involves risks, risks with devastating effects on
the human civilization in case of any disaster, but nuclear pessimist must
understand that there are great precautionary/safety measures with constant
vigilance and strong commitments, which definitely lower the chance of any
disaster in Pakistan.
Ahmad Khan and Beenish Altaf work in Strategic
Vision Institute, Islamabad.
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