THE NUCLEAR SHADOW
OVER KARACHI
MAR 17 2014 BY
PERVEZ HOODBHOY, ZIA MIAN AND A. H. NAYYAR
UNTESTED CHINESE NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY COULD IMPERIL
THE CITY OF 20 MILLION. 33 COMMENTS
Adebate has started
about the wisdom of building two large Chinese-supplied nuclear reactors in
Karachi. The fundamental concern is that the nearly 20 million people living in
Karachi—about one out of every 10 Pakistanis—could be at risk from these
reactors.
The two reactors,
worth $4.8 billion apiece, are to be supplied on a turnkey basis by the Chinese
National Nuclear Corp. A soft Chinese loan of $6.5 billion apparently proved
irresistible to the cash-strapped Pakistani government. This brand of reactor, known
as the ACP-1000, has not yet been built or tested anywhere. The Pakistan Atomic
Energy Commission (PAEC), which will operate these reactors, insists the
reactors will be safe.
But unlike
Pakistan’s officialdom, which is determined to rapidly expand nuclear power
generation, some Chinese industry insiders are fearful of the nuclear rush in
their own country. With billions of dollars at stake, they suspect that money,
schedules, and outsourcing to unqualified subcontractors may become more
important than nuclear safety. The former vice-president of the China National
Nuclear Corp. recently stated that, “Our state leaders have put a high priority
on [nuclear safety] but companies executing projects do not seem to have the
same level of understanding.” It is one of these Chinese companies that has
designed and will build the Karachi reactors.
Nuclear supporters
in Pakistan point to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and
highlight that it visits nuclear power plants and makes sure they are safe. But
the fact is that after the Fukushima accident, while addressing his board of
governors, and the world, on March 21, 2011, the director-general of the IAEA
stated categorically that, “We are not a nuclear safety watchdog …
responsibility for nuclear safety lies with our member states.”
Risky Business
Advocates for the
Karachi reactors claim that the so-called K-2 and K-3 plants (each with a
generation capacity of 1,100 megawatts) are based on a Chinese adaptation of a
long-established reactor type but with added safety features. Although the
reactor is still in the process of design, they expect it to work safely and
well.
But will this first
of a kind reactor actually behave as it should? According to IAEA sources,
Pakistan has not requested a safety review of the ACP-1000 design even though
it is committed to buying two reactors of this type. This is odd. Sensible
people would not even buy a used car without driving it to see if everything
works, and no airline would consider buying a new jetliner without extensive
flight-testing. Nuclear reactors have systems far more intricate than those
inside the most complex passenger aircraft. This is for good reason; the
consequences of a reactor failure could be immeasurably worse than an airplane
crash.
Unlike Pakistan,
China exercises caution in nuclear matters. It has asked for assistance from
the IAEA’s Design and Safety Assessment Review Service with the ACP-1000. It
plans to build two such reactors in China, and subsequently hopes to get
permits for exporting similar units to Europe and North America. However, the
IAEA review will not be a detailed, independent, international technical
assessment of this reactor’s safety. According to the IAEA, the Generic Reactor
Safety Review requested by China and scheduled to begin this May, “is focused
on checking the status of the documentation (completeness and
comprehensiveness)” compared to IAEA-recommended standards. The IAEA is
explicit that this review is not “intended
… to constitute any
kind of design certification.”
As an importer of
nuclear technology, China is a more discerning buyer than Pakistan. Today, a
debate rages in China over the purchase of new, so-far-untested American
nuclear reactors. A former vice-president of the China National Nuclear Corp.
has gone on record saying China should not buy the new untested American
reactors because, “This is very advanced technology, but it has not been
commercialized in a nuclear reactor anywhere, so it needs to be proven over
time.”
On the other hand,
China National Nuclear Corp. seems to have no qualms about selling its untested
reactors to Pakistan. Indeed, K-2 and K-3 construction was initially supposed
to be coincident with the construction of two prototypes of the ACP-1000
reactor design in China. But nuclear industry sources have suggested that China
may now abandon these prototype reactors in favor of a different design. The
final decision is yet to be taken. Should this happen, the Chinese reactors in
Karachi may well be the only ones of their kind built anywhere.
Instrumentation and
control systems are another potential worry. For the prototype reactors planned
for China, these systems will be supplied by the French nuclear company AREVA
and the German industrial giant Siemens. A contract was signed in December
2013, but these European companies may not be allowed to sell the same systems
for the Karachi reactors. If the Chinese nuclear industry has to produce such
systems, they will be the first of a kind.
A troubling
precedent suggests the need for caution.
In the 1990s, China
designed and built a prototype nuclear reactor at Qinshan. An accident in 1998
due to a design flaw shut it down for a year. Initially the Chinese nuclear
designers and operators could not understand or fix the problem, and had to
contract a U.S. company for the repair work. One part of the reactor had to be
redesigned. After this China did not build any more reactors of the Qinshan
design for itself, but happily sold this type of reactor to Pakistan; four such
reactors will eventually operate at Chashma. Pakistan was lucky that the reactor
accident happened before the first Chashma plant went online. There was enough
time for it to be redesigned to avoid the problem that led to the breakdown at
Qinshan. But will Pakistan’s luck always hold?
Site and Sound
Reactor supporters
are not worried about an earthquake or tsunami risk to the reactor site.
According to PAEC officials, the K-2 and K-3 site has been carefully studied
and the IAEA is claimed as having approved the site. This is not as reassuring
as it sounds.
At PAEC’s request,
the IAEA did indeed review, in 1998, a seismic study carried out at the Karachi
Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP), adjacent to the site of K-2 and K-3. But IAEA
sources tell Newsweekthat the IAEA has not specifically carried out
an assessment for the new Karachi site.
From the documents
made available for this piece, the PAEC seems to assume that the largest
possible earthquake that might happen off the Makran Coast, shaking Karachi and
unleashing a tsunami, would be an 8.3-magnitude event. This was the size of the
1945 Makran earthquake.
But new scientific
research, published in 2013 by a team from Britain’s National Oceanography
Centre and Canada’s Pacific Geoscience Centre, finds that the largest
earthquake in the Makran area may, in fact, be a lot bigger than what the PAEC
has assumed. The lead author of the study concludes: “Past assumptions may have
significantly underestimated the earthquake and tsunami hazard in this region.”
The new research suggests the Makran area is capable of producing earthquakes
as large as 9.2-magnitude ones. An earthquake of this size would be
significantly larger than the 9-magnitude earthquake that hit Fukushima in
March 2011. It would release over 20 times the energy of an 8.3-magnitude
earthquake, assumed by the PAEC in its studies of the earthquake risk at the
Karachi reactor site.
An earlier study,
in 2007, of the earthquake risk to Karachi by a group of researchers from the
United States and Pakistan looked at historical earthquakes over a period of
more than 1,000 years and found the risk to be poorly understood. The study
concluded that “Considering the number of known active [earthquake] faults that
menace Karachi from almost every direction … it seems possible if not probable
that hazard is higher than that assigned by recent national and global hazard
maps.”
Even in the 21st
century, earthquakes remain notoriously unpredictable. Just a month before the
Fukushima disaster, Japan’s nuclear regulatory authority approved a request to
run the nuclear plant there for another 10 years. This request had been
supported by studies on the risk to the site from earthquakes and tsunamis.
Everything looked okay. But, of course, it wasn’t.
Fukushima was hit
by a once-a-millennium event the nuclear industry’s earthquake experts did not
anticipate. The experts were clearly wrong about how big the biggest earthquake
could be, where it could be, and the tsunami’s strength. This was despite the
fact that Japanese earthquake and tsunami researchers form a large and
well-funded scientific community with the world’s most advanced instruments and
computer models, and have many hundreds of years of carefully collected
earthquake and tsunami records to build on.
On the other hand,
Pakistan has limited capability to monitor earthquake activity. In 2012, the National
Seismic Monitoring & Tsunami Early Warning Center in Karachi complained
that, “nearly half of the 62 seismometers working in the country are not
transmitting real-time data to the national seismic-activity monitoring
network.” They had been disconnected for lack of money to pay the monthly
connectivity cost of between Rs. 2,000 and Rs. 5,000 each.
Remember Chernobyl?
The vulnerability of
nuclear reactors to lax attitudes about safety and a lack of experience by
operators became catastrophically evident in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. An
IAEA investigation and report determined that “a poor level of safety culture”
and the “lack of feedback of operating experience and the inadequacy of
communication between designers, engineers, manufacturers, constructors,
operators and regulators … were critical factors in the events leading up to
the Chernobyl accident.”
How vulnerable is
Pakistan to the kind of human and institutional factors that led to the
Chernobyl accident? Pakistanis are often willing to accept high levels of risk
and place low priority to safety. The approach to problems in the general
public is often unscientific; many are satisfied to place their faith in God as
protector. Would these broadly shared social attitudes be reflected in how nuclear
power plant operators handle problems?
A further concern
is how well the Pakistani operators will understand and manage the new Chinese
reactors. The operators, who will be from the PAEC, are likely to have
less-than-complete knowledge of the imported nuclear plants because there was
no real local input into the design or manufacture of key components and
software.
Along with natural
disasters and operator error, in Pakistan there is the need to worry about the
risk of deliberate sabotage or terrorist attacks on nuclear reactors. Although
PAEC officials dismiss the possibility—and one hopes they are right—the problem
needs to be taken seriously.
Well-organized and
well-armed religious terrorists, often with insider help, have successfully
attacked even tightly guarded military institutions. The list includes places
that would expect to be attacked in wartime and so should have been heavily
defended—including the Pakistan Army’s General Headquarters, the Navy’s Mehran
base, and the Air Force’s Kamra base. If security forces cannot protect their own
bases, it is hard to see how they could successfully defend a nuclear power
plant.
Coping with
Catastrophe
Accepting that a
nuclear accident is unlikely, the question is how well could state machinery
respond just in case one happened? Better than with natural disasters or
industrial disasters? How well has Pakistan done in tackling them?
The 2010
floods—which left a fifth of Pakistan inundated and over 10 million people
affected—were notable for the lack of urgent response from the president and
prime minister. The National Disaster Management Authority responded
sluggishly. The downstream population received little warning. With the state
nowhere visible in many places, Pakistan’s ubiquitous, armed jihadist groups
substituted for it and played a major part in relief efforts.
Poor state control
and monitoring also leads to frequent industrial accidents in Pakistan. These
are underreported but often devastating. In 2012, a fire in one factory killed
300 people, but those responsible for ignoring safety standards have never been
punished. In a nuclear accident, those affected could be in the millions but,
again, those responsible may never be brought to task.
To be fair, the
PAEC accepts that there can be a catastrophic nuclear accident and could
require evacuation of Karachi’s population. This is why they have prepared an
emergency plan just in case something terrible happens. According to a press
briefing given by the project manager of the new Karachi reactors, there is an
evacuation plan for people living out to 15 kilometers from the site and the
“Pakistan Army, provincial and national disaster management authorities and
local administration and traffic police are in the loop in case of emergency
evacuation.”
But the choice of
15 kilometers for the emergency evacuation is arbitrary. The nature of the
accident will determine how much radioactivity is released, and the wind will
decide how fast and in which direction this radioactivity will go. The initial
exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant after its accident was
30 kilometers and even today no one is permitted to live within this distance
of the site. Similarly, at Fukushima, people within 30 kilometers were
evacuated. Today, almost three years later, the area within 20 kilometers of the
reactor is still defined as an evacuation zone, with people not allowed to live
there.
The discipline of
Fukushima’s residents during their evacuation was exemplary. But a similar
attempt in Karachi would likely result in unmanageable chaos. Roads would be
jammed, and emergency personnel and law enforcers would be rendered immobile or
might prefer to save themselves and take flight. In a city sharply divided
between haves and have-nots, and with large sections run by criminal mafias,
looting would be such a strong possibility that many would risk losing all they
have—and hence refuse evacuation.
If the PAEC has a
credible emergency evacuation plan, then it should hold public meetings across
Karachi and explain its strategy. The citizens of Karachi should have the right
to decide for themselves how well this plan deals with the challenge of their
safe and speedy evacuation in case of a nuclear accident.
Unfortunately,
there is evidence that nuclear evacuation plans have not been dealt with
seriously in Pakistan. In its survey of the Karachi reactor site, the PAEC
assumed that about 8 million people live within about 30 kilometers of the site
as of 2011 and only 12 million people live within about 50 kilometers of the
site. But it is obvious even to the casual observer that all of Karachi falls
within this distance of the reactor site and Karachi has a lot more than 12
million people living in it. The real population of Karachi may be closer to 20
million.
Is it safe to build
a reactor so close to so many people? The United States has a hundred nuclear
reactors, more than any other country in the world. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission guidelines require that a reactor should be located so that there
are not more than 500 people per square mile in any direction up to a distance
of 20 miles (about 30 kilometers) of the site. These guidelines clearly say
that, “A reactor should not be located at a site whose population density is
well in excess of the above value.”
By the PAEC’s own
counting, there are 8 million people within 20 miles of the site, a population
density of 6,450 people per square mile—more than 10 times the population
density considered acceptable by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The
PAEC and the disaster management authorities need to explain how, if needed,
they will carry out an emergency evacuation. How many people will have to be
evacuated in case of an accident? How will so many people be moved so quickly
and to where? How will they provide them shelter, food and water, hygiene and
medicine, and for how long?
The experience from
Fukushima and Chernobyl shows nuclear-accident evacuations can last for years
and even decades. What would be the long-term economic consequences of a
nuclear accident in Karachi? Just a few miles from the site of the new reactors
is a very large concentration of industries. What would happen to all these
businesses? If Karachi Port Trust and Port Qasim Authority have to be shut for
weeks, months, possibly years, because of radioactive contamination, what would
happen to all the industries and people across the country that depend on the
imports and exports passing through these ports? If the PAEC knows the answers,
they should make them public.
Visit Opacity
It is hard to get
official answers to questions about anything nuclear in Pakistan. Citing
national security reasons, opaqueness underlies all nuclear projects, civilian
and military. The authorities strictly control regulatory mechanisms. Unlike in
advanced countries, there is no public input on matters pertaining to nuclear
plant location and safety, or disposition of nuclear waste. Citizens raising
questions about nuclear safety are frequently labeled agents of foreign powers.
Nuclear authorities
have a history of dismissing local concerns regarding public safety. Poor and
powerless village communities around the Baghalchur area of Dera Ghazi Khan
have reported health effects from uranium mining operations. Questions were
asked in the National Assembly about the “serious hazard posed to the health
and survival of residents of central Punjab by the shocking levels of toxic
uranium waste being dumped in Baghalchur by government agencies” and why “PAEC
refuses to answer.” The villagers mustered the courage to go to court and
demand compensation. PAEC refused to give an answer in open court. Eventually,
under pressure, the villagers withdrew their court cases.
Today, the PAEC
claims that in its 40 years of operations the KANUPP reactor has never
discharged a significant amount of radiation to Karachi’s environment. There is
no independent means of saying whether this is true or false. Individuals not
belonging to the PAEC, or the Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Agency, are forbidden
from attempting to monitor radiation levels near any nuclear facility.
The siting process
for the new Karachi reactors has revealed a new reason for withholding vital
information from the public and denying them any role in decision-making. The
Environmental Impact Assessment for K-2 and K-3 was treated strictly as a
formal requirement, empty of any real meaning. In late 2013, it was pushed
through the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) surreptitiously and
without a public hearing. The PAEC official in charge of the new Karachi
reactor project told the press that, “We requested SEPA not to hold a public
hearing because of international politics.” The rights of Karachi’s citizens
were less important than the potential questions that might embarrass China’s
nuclear industry.
Minhaj Ahmed Rafi
Coming Soon
So far, mostly
lawmakers and citizens connected with the city have raised concern about the
Karachi reactors. But other Pakistanis may soon have to start worrying about
the risks and consequences of nuclear accidents.
The two reactors
planned for Karachi are the first step of a recently announced plan to build 32
nuclear power plants generating 40,000 megawatts at eight sites across
Pakistan. Each site would have four plants of 1,100 megawatts each. There are
reports that the government is discussing with China a deal to build three reactors
at Muzaffargarh, near Multan, and one or more reactors at Ahmadpur East, near
Bahawalpur; as many as six sites for reactors have been identified.
The drive for such
a massive and rapid expansion of nuclear power comes from the PAEC. It is a
powerful institution with tens of thousands of employees and a budget that in
the financial year 2012-2013 was a whooping Rs. 39.2 billion. PAEC’s clout owes
to the role it played in the nuclear-weapons program, and this clout remains
although the imported plants are under international safeguards and thus cannot
contribute to bomb-making.
If the Karachi
reactors go ahead, the nuclear shadow will spread across the country and will
be here to stay for a very long time. The new reactors will take at least six
years to build, and are claimed to have operational lifetimes of at least 60
years. This means the Karachi reactors will be around at least until
2080—unless there is an accident. Long after today’s nuclear decision-makers
are a distant memory, children in Karachi and at the other planned sites will
have to rely on the safety of Chinese technology and good luck.
There are the
alternatives. The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2013 found
that China, Germany, and Japan—three of the world’s top four economies—today
generate more energy from renewable sources than from nuclear power. In 2012,
China and India generated more power from wind than from their nuclear plants.
Just last year, India installed 2,500 megawatts of wind power and has plans for
expansion. China plans to increase its wind-power capacity from 75,000
megawatts today to a staggering 200,000 megawatts by 2020. In the U.S., which
has 100 nuclear power plants, a recent government report found that within four
years electricity from wind would be cheaper than nuclear power. Some 13,000
megawatts of wind power plants were installed in the U.S. last year alone. The
global addition to wind power in 2013 was over 40,000 megawatts.
There is a great
expansion underway also in using solar energy. India, which has over 2,000
megawatts of solar power, announced in February a plan to build a
4,000-megawatt solar plant in the Rajasthan desert. This is equivalent to four
large nuclear reactors. The $4.4-billion plant will take seven years to build.
The cost of electricity from solar power in India has fallen by more than half
in just the past three years, and it is expected to become even cheaper.
Environment
friendly and safe renewable energy sources are being rapidly adopted on a large
scale into the world’s energy economy for good reason. They can be built
quickly, can be expanded incrementally, and do not require vast commitments of
capital for long periods of time. They are also competitive in terms of
electricity cost.
There is no need
for a technological breakthrough. In 2012, the U.S. National Renewable
Electricity Laboratory found that renewables could provide over three quarters
of U.S. electricity generation by 2050, “using technologies that are
commercially available today, while meeting electricity demand in every hour of
the year in every region of the country.”
What has Pakistan
done about using its abundant wind power and solar energy resources? The
government’s Alternative Energy Development Board has officially estimated that
50,000 megawatts of wind power is available in just the Keti Bandar-Gharo area
alone. The total capacity of existing windmills there is a mere 100 megawatts.
If Pakistan is
going to rely on China to solve its energy problems, then why not import wind
turbines and production technology from China? China, after all, is now
designing and building its own windmills. Unlike enormously complex nuclear
power plants, wind turbines and solar thermal plants could be manufactured
locally and offer an important stimulus for the national economy. Turnkey
nuclear plants require that nearly everything, including skilled labor, be
imported.
Similarly, Pakistan
could learn from and cooperate with India in wind and solar power. Pakistan,
for example, could explore building a large solar plant in Thar. Pakistan could
also make much better use of the electricity it already produces. The National
Power Policy, 2013, admits that Pakistan has a “limited and crumbling transmission
system” and that this “terribly inefficient power transmission and distribution
system … currently records losses of 23-25 percent.” This means that about a
quarter of all electricity produced is lost (and/or stolen) on its way from
power plants to the final consumers.
On top of
transmission and distribution losses is the fact that the machines and
appliances in common use in Pakistani factories, offices and homes are not
energy efficient and so consume more energy than they should. The National
Power Policy claims that, “a conservation program based upon energy-saver
lighting is already underway with a potential of saving 1,000 megawatts if all
50 million consumers were to be converted to florescent bulbs.” This says, in
effect, that simply by switching the country to more efficient light bulbs,
enough electricity could be saved to do without one of the new Karachi nuclear
reactors.
Pakistan can take
the path of developing safe, clean, renewable energy. It can focus on energy
efficiency and conservation on a large and sustained scale. For the time being,
it has chosen instead to massively expand its generation capacity from nuclear
power plants. The siting of large and unproven nuclear reactors so close to
Karachi carries great and unnecessary risks that could prove very
costly—economically and in terms of lives. Fortunately, there is still time to
reconsider them.
The authors are physicists with an interest in
nuclear issues. From our March 22, 2014, issue.
Dr. S. Akhtar Ehtisham
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