Nuclear Power in Pakistan
(updated April 2011)
Pakistan has a small nuclear power program, with 725 MWe capacity, but plans to increase this substantially.
Pakistan's nuclear weapons capabilities of has arisen independently of the civil nuclear fuel cycle, using indigenous uranium.
Because Pakistan is outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, due to its weapons program, it is largely excluded from trade in nuclear plant or materials, which hinders its development of civil nuclear energy.
In Pakistan, nuclear power makes a small contribution to total energy production and requirements, supplying only 2.34% of the country's electricity. Total generating capacity is 20 GWe and in 2006, 98 billion kWh gross was produced, 37% of it from gas, 29% from oil.
The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) is responsible for all nuclear energy and research applications in the country.
Its first nuclear power reactor is a small 137 MWe (125 MWe net) Canadian pressurized heavy water reactor (PHWR) which started up in 1971 and which is under international safeguards - KANUPP near Karachi, which is operated at reduced power.
The second unit is Chashma-1 in Punjab, a 325 MWe (300 MWe net) 2-loop pressurised water reactor (PWR) supplied by China's CNNC under safeguards. The main part of the plant was designed by Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research and Design Institute (SNERDI), based on Qinshan-1. It started up in May 2000 and is also known as CHASNUPP-1. Designed life span is 40 years.
Construction of its twin, Chashma-2, started in December 2005. It is reported to cost PKR 51.46 billion (US$ 860 million, with $350 million of this financed by China). A safeguards agreement with IAEA was signed in 2006 and grid connection was in March 2011.
Pakistan Nuclear Power Reactors
Reactor Type MWe net Construction start Commercial operation Planned close
Karachi
PHWR
125
1966
12/72
Chashma 1
PWR
300
1993
6/00
2040
Chashma 2
PWR
300
2005
Grid connect 3/11, expected 2011
2051
Total (3)
725 operating
Enriched fuel for the PWRs is imported from China.
In 2005 an Energy Security Plan was adopted by the government, calling for a huge increase in generating capacity to more than 160,000 MWe by 2030. It included intention of lifting nuclear capacity to 8800 MWe, 900 MWe of this by 2015 and a further 1500 MWe by 2020.
Plans included four further Chinese reactors of 300 MWe each and seven of 1000 MWe, all PWR. There were tentative plans for China to build two 1000 MWe PWR units at Karachi as KANUPP 2 & 3, but China then in 2007 deferred development of its CNP-1000 type which would have been the only one of that size able to be exported. Pakistan is now planning to build smaller units with higher local content.
In June 2008 the government announced plans to build units 3 and 4 at Chashma, each 320 MWe gross and largely financed by China. A further agreement for China's help with the project was signed in October 2008, and given prominence as a counter to the US-India agreement shortly preceding it.
In March 2009 SNERDI announced that it was proceeding with design of Chasma 3 & 4, with China Zhongyuan Engineering as the general contractor and China Nuclear Industry No.5 Construction Company as installer. In April 2009, a design contract with SNERDI was signed, and the government said that it had approved the project at a cost of $2.37 billion, with $1.75 billion of this involving "a foreign exchange component". In March 2010 Pakistan announced that it had agreed the terms for Chasma 3 & 4, whereby China would provide 82% of the total US$ 1.912 billion financing as three 20-year low-interest loans. The main construction contract was signed in June 2010, and the two 340 MWe units are to be completed in eight years. They will have a design life of 40 years and be under IAEA safeguards.
However, the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) raised some questions about China's supply of Chasma-3 & 4. Contracts for units 1 & 2 were signed in 1990 and 2000 respectively, before 2004 when China joined the NSG, which maintains an embargo on sales of nuclear equipment to Pakistan. China argued that units 3 & 4 are similarly "grandfathered", and arrangements are consistent with those for units 1 & 2.
In November 2010 PAEC is reported to have signed a construction agreement with China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) for a fifth unit at Chashma, which may revive the prospect of a 1000 MWe class unit if China has an exportable model by 2013 as planned.
Nuclear Power Reactors Planned and Proposed
Reactor Type MWe gross Construction start Commercial operation
Chashma 3
PWR
340
2018
Chashma 4
PWR
340
2018
Chashma 5
PWR
000?
Total 3
Fuel cycle
The government has set a target of producing 350 tonnes U3O8 per year from 2015 to meet one third of anticipated requirements then. Low grade ore is known in central Punjab at Bannu Basin and Suleman Range.
A small (15,000 SWU/yr) uranium centrifuge enrichment plant at Kahuta has been operated by the PAEC since 1984 and does not have any apparent civil use. It was expanded threefold about 1991. A newer plant is reported to be at Gadwal. It is not under safeguards.
In 2006 the PAEC announced that it was preparing to set up separate and purely civil conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication plants as a new US$ 1.2 billion Pakistan Nuclear Power Fuel Complex which would be under IAEA safeguards and managed separately from existing facilities. At least the enrichment plant would be built at Chak Jhumra, Faisalabad, in the Punjab and have a 150,000 SWU/yr capacity in five years - about 2013, then be expanded in 150,000 SWU increments to be able to supply one third of the enrichment requirements for a planned 8800 MWe generating capacity by 2030.
However, if Pakistan cannot obtain exemption for Nuclear Suppliers' Group trade sanctions in order to build more nuclear power capacity and obtain more uranium in the near future, there may be no point in proceeding with this civil Fuel Complex.
Wastes
The PAEC has responsibility for radioactive waste management. A Radioactive Waste Management Fund is proposed in a new proposed policy. Waste Management Centres are proposed for Karachi and Chashma.
Used fuel is currently stored at each reactor in pools. Longer-term dry storage at each site is proposed. The question of future reprocessing remains open.
A National Repository for low- and intermediate-level wastes is due to be commissioned by 2015.
Regulation
The Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority is responsible for licensing and supervision, and in respect to the Chashma reactors it works closely with China's NNSA.
R&D and other activities
Pakistan also has a 10 MW research reactor, Parr-1, of 1965 vintage operated by the Pakistan Institute of Technology.
Another "multipurpose" reactor, a 50 MWt PHWR near Khushab, started operating in 1998 and is evidently for producing weapons-grade plutonium. A larger heavy water reactor has been under construction at Khushab since about 2002, and appeared to be operational at the end of 2009. In 2006 building of a third reactor, similar to the second, started at the site, with construction proceeding rapidly. Early in 2011 a similar, fourth reactor had apparently started construction there. Khushab is reported to be making demands upon the country's limited uranium resources. A small heavy water plant is nearby. Reprocessing of military material is reported to take place at Chashma, 80 km west, and a second reprocessing plant is apparently under construction there.
Non-proliferation
Pakistan is not party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty but does have its main civil power reactors under item-specific IAEA safeguards. It has refused calls for international inspections of its enrichment activities.
In May 1998 it exploded two or more atomic devices at two separate locations, evidently made from enriched uranium.
Through the activities of A.Q.Khan, a centrifuge plant and nuclear weapons designs were supplied clandestinely to Libya from the late 1990s to 2003 to furbish a weapons program there. He also transferred centrifuge technology to North Korea in the 1990s, and to Iran.
Appendix:
NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION ISSUES
Pakistan (along with India and Israel) was originally a "threshold" country in terms of the international non-proliferation regime, possessing, or quickly capable of assembling one or more nuclear weapons. Their nuclear weapons capability at the technological level was recognised (all have research reactors at least) along with their military ambitions. Then in 1998 India and Pakistan's military capability became more overt. All three remained outside the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which 186 nations have now signed. This led to their being largely excluded from trade in nuclear plant or materials, except for safety-related devices for a few safeguarded facilities.
Regional rivalry
Relations between Pakistan and India are tense and hostile, and the risks of nuclear conflict between them have long been considered quite high.
In 1974 India exploded a "peaceful" nuclear device and then in May 1998 India and Pakistan each exploded several nuclear devices underground. This heightened concerns regarding an arms race between them.
Kashmir is a prime cause of bilateral tension, its sovereignty being in dispute since 1948. There is persistent low level military conflict due to Pakistan backing a Muslim rebellion there.
Both countries engaged in a conventional arms race in the 1980s, including sophisticated technology and equipment capable of delivering nuclear weapons. In the 1990s the arms race quickened. In 1994 India reversed a four-year trend of reduced allocations for defence, and despite its much smaller economy, Pakistan pushed its own expenditures yet higher. Both then lost their patrons: India, the former USSR, and Pakistan, the USA.
Pakistan has offered to disarm and join the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty if India would, although both countries sees the NPT as unfair and India would prefer other international arrangements for limiting weapons proliferation.
Pakistan's weapons technology is based on the production of highly enriched uranium suitable for nuclear weapons, utilising indigenous uranium. It has at least one small centrifuge enrichment plant. In 1990 the US Administration cut off aid because it was unable to certify that Pakistan was not pursuing a policy of manufacturing nuclear weapons though this was relaxed late in 2001. In 1996 USA froze export loans to China because it was allegedly supplying centrifuge enrichment technology to Pakistan.
Pakistan made it clear since early 1996 that if India staged a nuclear test, it had done the basic development work and would immediately start assembling its own nuclear explosive device. Its nuclear weapons capability has since been demonstrated, and it is assumed to have enough highly-enriched uranium for up to 40 nuclear warheads.
In April 1998 Pakistan test fired a long-range missile capable of reaching Madras in southern India, pushing home the point by naming it after a 12th Century Muslim conqueror. This development diminished India's military advantage over Pakistan.
Since then Pakistan has been exposed as having supplied sensitive nuclear technology, notably centrifuge enrichment designs and equipment, to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Its non-proliferation credentials therefore stand in stark contrast to India's. Pakistan's security concerns derive from:
India's possession of a nuclear weapons capability,
its development of short and intermediate-range missiles and, since their partition in 1947,
its defeat by India in two of three wars, notably in East Bengal, now Bangladesh, in 1972.
Nuclear Arms Control in the Region
The public stance of Pakistan and India on non-proliferation differs markedly.
Pakistan has initiated a series of regional security proposals. It has repeatedly proposed a nuclear-free zone in South Asia and has proclaimed its willingness to engage in nuclear disarmament and to sign the NPT if India would do so. This would involve disarming and joining as non-weapon states. It has endorsed a US proposal for a regional five power conference to consider non-proliferation in South Asia
India has taken the view that solutions to regional security issues should be found at the international rather than the regional level, since its chief concern is with China. It therefore rejects Pakistan's proposals.
Instead, India's 'Gandhi Plan', put forward in 1988, proposed the revision of the NPT, which it regards as inherently discriminatory in favour of the five Nuclear-Weapons States, and a timetable for complete nuclear weapons disarmament. It endorsed early proposals for a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and for an international convention to ban the production of highly enriched uranium and plutonium for weapons purposes, known as the 'cut-off' convention.
The USA has, for some years pursued a variety of initiatives to persuade India and Pakistan to abandon their nuclear weapons programs and to accept comprehensive international safeguards on all their nuclear activities. To this end the Clinton administration proposed a conference of nine states, comprising the five established nuclear-weapon states, along with Japan, Germany, India and Pakistan.
This and previous similar proposals have been rejected by India, which countered with demands that other potential weapons states, such as Iran and North Korea, should be invited, and that regional limitations would only be acceptable if they were accepted equally by China. The USA would not accept the participation of Iran and North Korea and such initiatives lapsed.
Another, more recent approach, centres on the concept of containment, designed to 'cap' the production of fissile material for weapons purposes, which would hopefully be followed by 'roll back'. To this end India and the USA jointly sponsored a UN General Assembly resolution in 1993 calling for negotiations for a 'cut-off' convention. Should India and Pakistan join such a convention, they would have to agree to halt the production of fissile materials for weapons and to accept international verification on their relevant nuclear facilities (enrichment and reprocessing). In short, their weapons programs would be thus 'capped'. It appeared that India was prepared to join negotiations regarding such a Cut-off Treaty under the UN Conference on Disarmament (UNCD).
However, despite the widespread international support for a FMCT, formal negotiations on cut-off have yet to begin. The UNCD can only approve decisions by consensus and since the summer of 1995, the insistence of a few states to link FMCT negotiations to other nuclear disarmament issues has brought progress on the cut-off treaty there to a standstill. In connection with its 2006 agreement with the USA, India has reiterated its support for a FMCT.
Bilateral confidence-building measures between India and Pakistan to reduce the prospects of confrontation have been limited. In 1990 each side ratified a treaty not to attack the other's nuclear installations, and at the end of 1991 they provided one another with a list showing the location of all their nuclear plants, even though the respective lists were regarded as not being wholly accurate. Early in 1994 India proposed a bilateral agreement for a 'no first use' of nuclear weapons and an extension of the 'no attack' treaty to cover civilian and industrial targets as well as nuclear installations.
Having promoted the CTBT since 1954, India dropped its support in 1995 and in 1996 attempted to block the Treaty. Following the 1998 tests the question has been reopened and both Pakistan and India have indicated their intention to sign the CTBT. Indian ratification may be conditional upon the five weapons states agreeing to specific reductions in nuclear arsenals.
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