LAHORE, Nov 8: Nuclear power plants can now be designed, manufactured, commissioned and maintained without foreign collaboration at any stage, official sources say.

Given the required funds and the go ahead, the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission can thus help substantially reduce the country’s dependence on thermal or hydel power.

Source said feasibility reports had already been prepared for power plants of various capacities. Work on these plants can, however, be launched only after allocation of resources.

Pakistan recently set up the 300-MW Chashma Nuclear Power Plant with Chinese assistance.

The life on another 137-MW plant working in Karachi has been extended by 20 years by local scientists and engineers.

The Karachi plant had been provided by Canada which stopped supplying fuel shortly after it was commissioned. For the past two decades, the plant is being run on locally produced fuel.

The experience of maintenance of the first and fabrication and commissioning of the second power plant has prepared the PAEC scientists and engineers for independently handling similar assignments in the future.

The cost of a fabrication and installation of a nuclear power plant is higher than a thermal or hydel project of identical capacity. But, sources say, the running cost is much less. Also, the nuclear plants emit no pollutants.

Subject to resource availability, the PAEC is capable of setting up a 600 MW power plant or two power plants of 300 MW each.

Choosing nuclear energy can cut Pakistan’s huge fuel import bill. Pakistan can also produce nuclear fuel for these plants from indigenous resources and the nuclear power plants already in operation are using local fuel.