Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (Paec) Chairman Dr Ansar Parvez, has spoken of the plans on the part of the Paec to build many more nuclear power plants, including a few in Karachi, to meet the target of 8,800 MW of electricity from nuclear power as envisaged in the energy security plan. He stated this in his address at the 2009 convocation of the KANUPP Institute of Nuclear Power Engineering (KINPOE) here on Tuesday. Dr Ansar Parvez said that there was a renaissance of nuclear power in the world today because of the good performance of more than 400 operating nuclear power plants, uncertain oil prices and international concerns on carbon dioxide emission. The nuclear power plants did not emit greenhouse gases and had also demonstrated that they were cost competitive, safe and reliable. "From its early days, the generation of electrical energy through nuclear power has been one of the Paec's primary objectives. For this purpose, it has established nuclear power plants as well as a complex network of associated fuel cycle technology. "It has been actively engaged in providing the benefits of sophisticated nuclear techniques in the medical and agriculture sectors," said the PAEC chief. He said that the co-operation for a peaceful application of nuclear energy between Pakistan and China was progressing because of the longstanding excellent relations between our two nations and these relations also augured well for our future nuclear energy development programme. He said that the Paec had been assigned the target of 8,800 MW nuclear electricity by 2030 and some of the new plants would be built near Kanupp. "For this purpose, we have already purchased 585 acres of land adjacent to Kanuup to build additional plants. "Although the cost of land, amounting to Rs 350 million has already been paid, and the lease agreement has been signed in August 2008, the mutation and demarcation of the land, however, have not been carried out." He said. Dr Ansar said that he had requested the authorities concerned to expedite the case of the land so that the Paec could start development work at site. He said: "Based on the experience, gained through our Reverse Osmosis (RO) plant, the Kanuup now works as consultant for the 100,000 gallon per day capacity RO plant at Gwadar. "The Paec can also offer its technical assistance in setting up large size desalination plants," he said. Dr Ansar said that the Kanuup was setting up a Nuclear Desalination Demonstration Plant with the capacity of 400,000 gallons per day, which was indigenously built in the Paec with some assistance from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). "We can also offer technical assistance to the City District Government Karachi (CDGK) for its planned 50 million gallons per day desalination plant, he added. The Paec Chairman also pointed out that amongst all the developing countries, Pakistan took the lead in the generation of electricity from nuclear power plants by building Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (Knuup). It had been kept operational despite many embargoes imposed on us. "It is now operating on extended life through modifications and safety retrofits done entirely by our own people," he added. He also enumerated the services rendered by the Paec AEC towards socio-economic uplift of the country by running 13 cancer hospitals across the country with five more under construction, agricultural and biotechnology and genetic engineering institutes and a series of human resource development and goal-oriented research centres. The Paec chief mentioned that last year the number of patients, who benefited from our cancer hospitals, were more than 350,000. He said that our agriculture and bio-technology institutes were contributing at the national level by developing crop varieties that had higher resistance to disease, mature early and gave higher yield. Meanwhile, Dr Ansar also said that one of the major problems, being faced by the Kanuup, was the unscheduled shutdown due to instability in the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) grid. In 2007 and 2008, these shutdowns had badly affected the supply of electricity to Karachi. He requested the authorities to help resolve the problem related to the KESC grid. Earlier, Director of Kanuup Institute of Nuclear Power Engineering (KINPOE) Dr Khalid Mahmood Bukhari, gave the resume of the contributions of the institute from its genesis in 1970s as Karachi Nuclear Power Training Centre to its present day status of producing two-year master degree programme in nuclear engineering in affiliation with the NED University.