Reply #11: asia: Vietnam stays the nuclear course

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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/ME13Ae03.html

HO CHI MINH CITY - Pervasive and ongoing power shortages represent perhaps the biggest hurdle to sustaining Vietnam's fast economic growth and attractiveness as a manufacturing base to foreign investors. The country will need to add an additional 4,600 megawatts of generating capacity per year from now to 2016 just to keep pace with demand, according to government estimates.

While other countries in the region rethink their nuclear power plans in the wake of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that destroyed nuclear power plants in Japan, Vietnam has stood firm behind its ambitious designs. Vietnam plans to build 14 nuclear reactors with Russian, American and Japanese assistance over the next two decades. The first, in Ninh Thuan province, is under construction.

Hanoi's decision to pursue nuclear power dates back to the mid-1990s when market reforms started to take root. Prime Minister


Nguyen Tan Dung has since made industrialization by 2020 a key goal of his economic development agenda, but drought-stricken hydropower dams and diminishing coal supplies have contributed to frequent power outages and put Dung's industrialization ambitions in doubt.