Hanoi - Vietnam's National Assembly will likely vote to approve two projected nuclear power plants Wednesday, a deputy said, despite concerns over safety and costs. "It is not worth building nuclear power plants at this time, because the country is not thoroughly prepared for the project of building them," said Nguyen Minh Thuyet, vice chairman of the National Assembly's Committee for Culture, Education and Youth.
The government estimates the power plants slated for the southern coastal province of Ninh Thuan would cost 12 billion dollars. It said 75 per cent of the funding would come from foreign loans.
By 2025, the government expects 4.4 per cent of the country's electricity to come from nuclear power.
Thuyet said the cost of the plants amounted to half the country's foreign reserves, and would mean power from nuclear sources would likely be three times as expensive as current electricity rates.
Another National Assembly deputy, Nguyen Lan Dung, worried that Vietnam lacked trained staff for the reactors, and that foreign professionals would have to run them. Given the risks of nuclear power, Dung said, he preferred to develop more small hydropower plants, and wind, solar and thermal energy.
Other deputies raised concerns that the uranium to fuel the plants would need to be imported, and that Vietnam had inadequate plans for disposing of nuclear waste.
Vietnam needs to double its electrical power generation from 2010 to 2015 just to keep up with demand. Experts say renewable energy sources will be insufficient, and the country plans to quadruple coal-generation capacity by 2015 alone.
The government says it would initially spend 900 million dollars to import uranium for the two power plants. It estimates it would then need to buy 320 million dollars' worth of uranium every 18 months.
Minister of Industry and Trade Vu Huy Hoang was quoted last week on the Vietnamese news website VnExpress as saying the plants were necessary because the country's coal and oil reserves are running out, and alternative energy sources are inadequate.
Ta Van Huong, director of the Ministry of Trade and Industry's energy department, told the online newspaper VietnamNet that nuclear power was competitive in price.
If the two plants are approved, construction would start in 2014, with commercial operations due to begin in 2020.
