Experts agreed on the necessity to develop nuclear technology in order to build a 100 percent national plant following from Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu's comments on 21 October on the plan for a third nuclear power plant by 2018-2019.
Davutoglu said the plan would go ahead when the country has sufficiently qualified people to put the project into operation, and his comments sparked off questions on how this could be achieved.
"What Turkey wants through the first two nuke power plant projects is to learn the necessary technology and to make its mark regarding this industry," said Nursin Guney, professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Yildiz Technical University Istanbul and analyst at the Wise Men Center for Strategic Studies.
Turkey already has two planned nuclear power plant projects. One is to be built through a Russian-Turkish joint venture in Mersin, in the Mediterranean region and the second in the Black Sea region through Japanese-Turkish cooperation.
Turkey unfortunately runs behind other countries as it does not have any nuclear energy development so far, but it has become a national cause for Turkey to have this type of power supply to generate electricity, said Guney.
"Turkey first should build mini nuclear power plants with 30-50 megawatt capacity which can be installed in a 20 square metres area so the country will have begun using the necessary nuclear technology," said Haluk Utku, the head of Institute of Nuclear Science at Hacettepe University Ankara.
He said that by starting small through these mini plants, the learned technology will pave the way for nuclear power plants with larger capacity. He added that mini plants could be constructed and could start operations within three to four years and would cost $4 thousand per megawatt.
The mini plants could also be mobile thus enabling the country to provide electricity in any situation to strategically important places like hospitals and military zones.
Guney stressed that nuclear power is crucial for energy mix and cited that even Saudi Arabia, despite having the largest oil reserves in the world, is seeking to diversify its energy resources by planning to build 16 nuclear power plant reactors within 20 years, the first one to be constructed in 2022.
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