KARACHI, July 11: Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) is working on a plan to set up one unit each at its nuclear power plants at Karachi and Mianwali.

PAEC Chairman Pervez Butt disclosed this during his speech at the 7th convocation of KANUPP Institute of Nuclear Power Engineering (KINPOE) on Thursday. He said that in order to keep up with the global trend of using nuclear power and to increase the country’s power generating capacity, the PAEC was working on a plan to establish a second unit at CHASNUPP and another at the KANUPP site, which would be called K2.

Referring to the 16 per cent share of nuclear power in the world electric power generation, he said that 432 nuclear power plants were operating successfully and safely in the world.

Pakistan’s nuclear plants were generating only three per cent of the electricity production, he said.

He mentioned that KANUPP was nearing the end of its design life, but there were plans to extend its life by 12 to 15 years.

He said the PAEC wanted to build a plant bigger than the combined capacity of KANUPP and CHASNUPP soon.

Highlighting the significance of freshwater for the safety of plants, he said that in order to meet the deficiency in water supply, a reverse osmosis desalination plant with a capacity of 100,000 gallons per day had been set up at the KANUPP complex.