Ground Broken for 300MW Nuclear Power Plant in Southwest Iran

A nulcear power plant, named Karoun, is equipped with a pressurized water reactor (PWR) that uses ordinary or light water as both coolant and moderator.

Mohammad Eslami, director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), and a number of his deputies attended the groundbreaking ceremony.

The power plant will be established on a plot of land measuring 50 hectares in area, in the vicinity of the Karoun River.

Light water reactors are generally the most economical and common type of reactors. They use uranium oxide enriched to around 4 percent purity as fuel.

In line with the mission of the Atomic Energy Organization, building this kind of power plant is on the agenda to produce nuclear electricity.

The project is estimated to take approximately eight years to be inaugurated. It will be implemented and put into operation by using the country's maximum domestic capabilities in the fields of designing, supplying equipment, and building nuclear power plants.

Some $2 billion is forecast to be spent on the project that will supply electricity to the region.

It should be noted that domestic companies will build the fixed mechanical equipment of the power plant, as well as design and build the cooling pumps of the first circuit and the safety of the power plant.

In August, Eslami said the government is allowed to construct nuclear power plants with a total capacity of 10,000 megawatts over the next 20 years in collaboration with foreign or local investors and under the supervision of the Atomic Energy Organization.

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