Thailand Plans First Nuclear Power Plant by 2021
Date: 12-Jun-07
Country: THAILAND
"The overall action plan to build the nuclear power plant should be finished by the end of this year," Piyasavasti Amranand told reporters.
The goal was for the nuclear plant to start generating electricity in 2021, he said.
"The first seven years will be for preparation and the other six years will be for the construction of the plant," Piyasavasti said.
The nuclear plant was part of a new 15-year power development plan to 2021 which calls for new capacity of 39,676.25 megawatts (MW), with 4,000 MW of it nuclear.
The nuclear power plant would give net energy importer Thailand an option to produce power without contributing to the global warming, the minister said.
State-run Electricity of Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), which produces nearly 60 percent of Thailand's 27,788 MW power capacity, is looking for a suitable plot of land to build the plant, its chief said.
"To build the 4,000 megawatt nuclear plant, you need to have at least a piece of about 2,000-3,000 rais (800-1,200 acres) of land, close to the sea, to make it more convenient for delivering uranium," EGAT's governor Kraisri Karnasutra said.
The investment cost for one nuclear power plant was expected at US$6 billion, or US$1.5 million per megawatt, due to high technology cost, he said.
The cost of producing power at the nuclear power plant is 2.01 baht per unit, lower than the 2.05 baht per unit of the power produced by coal-fired power plants, he said.
The Energy Ministry would launch a campaign to educate the public on the positive sides of nuclear power as well as starting training people in nuclear know-how both domestically and abroad, Kraisri said.
Thailand drafted its first nuclear power plant plan in 1991 but was never implemented due to strong opposition by environmentalists and activists groups. Nuclear power's image is still tainted by the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
"But at the end of the day, the nuclear plant is very necessary and we'll have to tell the public clearly why we need it," Kraisri said.
In 2002, villagers forced the government to cancel plans for two coal-powered plants in the western province of Prachuab Khirikhan.
Earlier this year, 200 of them protested at a Bangkok hotel, saying said they wanted no power plant in the province, forcing the government to abandon plans to build three coal-fired plants there.
(US$1 = 34.64 Baht)
(Additional reporting by Pisit Changplayngam)