ISLAMABAD, May 1: The Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority (PNRA) has made it obligatory for licensees for nuclear power plants to prove that the probability of any release of radioactivity from their plants ‘is not more than one in a million years’. Besides, the licensees would also have to ensure that the probability of any damage to the reactor core ‘would not be more than one in a hundred thousand years’, says an official announcement made by the PNRA on Sunday.

These targets are to be met by all new N-power plants to be installed in the country. Meeting these targets would make the chances of such incidents as small as of getting someone killed by a meteor falling on earth, said Zaheer A. Baig, head of the PNRA’s Information Services Directorate.

Pakistan plans to start a crash programme to generate 8,800mw electricity from nuclear plants by the year 2030 to meet its growing energy needs. At present, the country produces around 400mw of nuclear energy from its two power plants, one in Karachi and the other at Chashma near Mianwali.

Work on building another 300-mw nuclear power plant (Chashma-II) was taken up last month during the visit of Chinese prime minister to Islamabad. The Energy Security Plan for the next 25 years has been approved by President General Pervez Musharraf.

The PNRA is holding a training course in Islamabad from May 2 to 6 on ‘Probabilistic Safety Assessment’ (PSA) in collaboration with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Experts from the United States, Spain and Hungary would deliver lectures during the course to be attended by people from the PNRA and the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission.

Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PBA) is used for verifying and improving safety in nuclear power plants by identifying accident scenarios, detecting weak links, determining the consequences and prioritizing solutions. All this could be done while the plant was still in the design stage, Mr Baig said.

Various regulatory bodies from developed and developing countries are now using the PBA technique. The PNRA has decided to enhance the use of this technique in the country.

As by-product, the technique would ensure protection of nuclear power plants which were national assets built with considerable investments, he said.