Vietnam abandons plan for first nuclear power plants

Vietnam abandons plan for first nuclear power plants

A motorcyclist rides past a large poster of Vietnamese independence hero Ho Chi Minh on display in Hanoi on June 28, 2012. (AFP/File - Hoang Dinh Nam)

edited by kcontents

Posted 22 Nov 2016 

HANOI: Vietnam's National Assembly voted on Tuesday (Nov 22) to scrap plans to build two multi-billion-dollar nuclear power plants with Russia and Japan, after officials cited lower demand forecasts, rising costs and safety concerns.

The vote to abandon what would have been the country's first nuclear energy project deals a blow to the global nuclear business and to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's drive to begin exporting reactors after the Fukushima disaster left Japan's nuclear industry in deep-freeze.

Vietnam's decision, announced by the government in a statement, was taken in a closed session after discussion of a government proposal earlier this month.

In November 2009 Vietnam approved plans for the two plants and awarded construction to Russia's Rosatom and a consortium of Japanese firms led by private utility Japan Atomic Power.

Scrapping the project is a further setback for the nuclear industry as countries from Germany to Indonesia have decided to either pull out of nuclear energy or cancel development plans in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011, the world's worst since Chernobyl in 1986.

Rosatom said earlier this month that it would not comment until the Vietnam parliament formalised the decision.

The Japanese and Russian nuclear plants were due to have been located in central Ninh Thuan province.

They would have had a combined capacity of 4,000 megawatts. The Ninh Thuan 2 No. 1 reactor was due to begin operations in 2021, followed by the Ninh Thuan 2 No. 2 unit in 2022, both to have been supplied by Japanese companies. The Rosatom reactors at the Ninh Thuan 1 plant were due to start operating in 2020.

(Reporting by Hanoi bureau; Editing by John Chalmers and Susan Fenton)

Reuters

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