History
Since her independence from United Kingdom, Pakistan had repeatedly suffered energy crises, that contributed to country's economic slowdown. In 1960, President Field Marshal Ayub Khan had appointed Dr. Abdus Salam as his Science Advisor. Soon Abdus Salam became the head of the Pakistan's IAEA delegation. There, Abdus Salam had, now at the U.N. General Assembly, repeatedly and tirelessly advocated for the support of nuclear energy in his country. And, due to Abdus Salam's significant influence on President Field Marshal Ayub Khan, Salam succeeded to obtain an approval from Ayub Khan, against the wishes of military government of Ayub Khan in 1965. Due to Abdus Salam's influence on President Ayub Khan, Salam had the commercial nuclear plant near Karachi personally approved, in spite of the opposition against the project. In 1965, Abdus Salam traveled to United States, where in a ceremony, Canada and Pakistan signed a nuclear energy pact with GE Canada establishing the country's first nuclear plant. Per agreement, the PAEC's engineers and scientists led the construction of this mega-project. While, GE Canada provided economical funds and HEU based nuclear fuel. Parvez Butt, a nuclear engineer, was the chief designer of the plant who worked at the GE Canada's designing office. In 1966, the construction was started, and it was completed in 1971, before the starting of Indo-Pak 1971 Winter War. On November 28 of 1972, as President, later Prime minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, accompanied with Abdus Salam and newly appointed PAEC's Chairman Munir Ahmad Khan, inaugurated the first unit of the Karachi Nuclear Plant.
The technology of the nuclear power plant is highly resembles to India's CIRUS and DHRUVA reactor, with another small reactor producing reactor-grade plutonium which was produced in large stocks. Munir Ahmad Khan, now as chairman, ingeniously developed and established the nuclear fuel cycle programme. In 1972, Pakistan under Bhutto, had refused to signed the NPT. Because the reactor grade plutonium was extremely dangerous to be open in public, the PAEC transferred the reactor-grade plutonium to the New Laboratories (known as The New Labs), and produces the first batch of fresh weapon-grade plutonium. In 1976, Canada had stopped the supply of fuel and spare parts for the plant The high-radioactive material was also left openly in Karachi as Canadian technicians departed from Pakistan. Pakistan media then speculated that in absence of Canadian officials, the city would suffer a major power blackout. Canadian officials later issued the statement that the reactor will be shut down in a matter of six months. However, the PAEC, under Munir Ahmad Khan, took up this challenge and using indigenous resources produced the feed for KANUPP. In 1978, the PAEC developed its own nuclear fuel and began loading the feedstock to KANUPP-I. From its establishment and present, the KANUPP-I has nearly 10 billion KWhrs of electricity and has been fuelled by thousands and thousands of Pakistani made fuel bundles without any failure. As of today, the KANUPP-I has been expanded and is currently a part of Karachi Nuclear Power Complex (KNPC) and is owned and operated by Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC).
Read more about this topic: Karachi Nuclear Power Plant
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