Page 8 - AsiaElec Week 09 2023

AsiaElec NUCLEAR AsiaElec

Vietnam ponders move back

towards nuclear power

Japan and Russia watch closely as Vietnam looks to reboot nuclear program

VIETNAM VIETNAM’S Atomic Energy Institute end of the Vietnam War just over a decade later.
(VINATOM) will this year make moves towards These parts and much of the expert man-
continuing previously abandoned research on power was, it is thought, shipped back across the
the use of nuclear power in the country. Pacific before American forces withdrew from
According to sources in the Vietnamese cap- Saigon – modern day Ho Chi Minh.
ital, Hanoi, an annual plan energy released by Reports suggest that Vietnam did once again
VINATOM will see a base study on the applica- look at possible nuclear power generation with
tion of nuclear power coupled to fields as varied the intent of establishing its own nuclear power
as agriculture and healthcare with the overall plants (NPPs), by way of research carried out
goal of helping the country of 99.7mn bounce from the early 1980s until the mid-2000s.
back from three years of COVID that claimed Extensive plans were then put in place, and
the lives of around 43,000. international agreements made with authorities
Unlike Myanmar, however, with its recent in Russia and Japan with the goal of bringing
Naypyidaw-Moscow deal in place, Vietnam will online 8 NPPs between 2020 and 2025. Total
instead be entirely self-sufficient and will not capacity was predicted to eventually be 8 GW.
be relying on any foreign governments to help Four of these NPPS were planned with
speed up the process, at least not on the surface. Russian backing, the remainder with aid
Instead, Hanoi will be conducting its own from Tokyo, already by that time a key over-
research into nuclear fuel, processing and asso- seas partner in energy production in the
ciated safety issues as well as all other aspects country.
of early atomic energy integration into existing In 2016, however, Vietnam’s central govern-
energy infrastructure. ment announced that it was discontinuing its
Late last year the serving deputy director of nuclear power programme, with reports at the
VINATOM, Tran Ngoc Toan, as a senior official time putting the reason down to limited eco-
of the agency operating under the government’s nomic viability.
Ministry of Science and Technology, announced Fast forward seven years, and Hanoi is
that the nation’s Da Lat reactor had been opera- once again raising the issue of nuclear power
tional for a total of 4,530 hours. generation.
This figure was, according to Tran, almost Precise reasons beyond helping to pro-
51% higher than its planned target rate, making duce medicine, and aiding in agricultural and
it capable of aiding in the production of medi- other practices, have not yet been officially
cines used in cancer treatments in the country. announced, although a need to reach eventual
Verification on the claims about the Da Lat net-zero status is casting a shadow over much
reactor is notoriously hard to achieve, as it is of the region.
generally believed that following its initial oper- More specifically for Vietnam, so too is for-
ating run in 1963 and for several years after- mer nuclear partner Japan’s refusal over the last
wards, albeit with US aid, all working parts of year to build or support the construction of any
the Triga reactor in place were removed near the more coal power plants in the country.™

P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 09 01 •March•2023