Ruppur Nuclear Power Plant

Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant
Location of Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant in Bangladesh
Country	Bangladesh
Location	Rooppur, Pabna Bangladesh
Coordinates	24°3′36″N 89°2′24″E / 24.06000°N 89.04000°E / 24.06000; 89.04000Coordinates: 24°3′36″N 89°2′24″E / 24.06000°N 89.04000°E / 24.06000; 89.04000
Construction began	2009
Construction cost	12.65 billion $
Operator(s)	Rosatom
Nuclear power station
Reactor type	AES-2006
Reactor supplier	Rosatom
Cooling source	Padma River
Power generation
Units planned	2
Nameplate capacity	1,200 MW
Annual output	2,4 GWh

Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant is a planned 2.4 GWe nuclear power plant of Bangladesh. It will be the country's first nuclear power plant, and the first of two units is expected to go into operation in 2023. It is to be built by the Russian Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation.

The nuclear power plant will be built at Rooppur, 200 km north-west of Dhaka, at Paksey union on the bank of the river Padma in the Ishwardi subdistrict of Pabna District, in the northwest of the country.

The proposal was made in 1961. Government took 253.90 acres of land in that year to build the plant. In 1963 the plant was approved. Discussions took place with the Canadian government in 1964 and 1966. Discussions with the governments of Sweden and Norway were also going on in those years. However, no real progress was achieved. After the independence of Bangladesh, the Government of Bangladesh started discussion with the Soviet Union in 1974, however no agreement was reached. In 2001 the government adopted a national Nuclear Power Action Plan.

In 2009 the Bangladesh government again started discussion with the Russian government and on 13 February the two governments signed a memorandum of understanding. Rosatom said they would start construction by 2013.

In 2013 a group of Bangladeshi scientists and the global diaspora voiced profound concern over the safety and economic viability of the plant. Several separate issues were raised, from the unsuitability of the site to the obsolescence of the VVER-1000 model proposed, questionable financing arrangements and a lack of agreement with Russia over nuclear waste disposal.