According to the governor of the province of Río Negro, Alberto Weretilneck, there is a Chinese commitment with the Argentine government to finance the construction of the fifth Argentine nuclear power plant in Patagonia.
“The National Government agreed in China to install in Río Negro the fifth nuclear power plant in Argentina. The contruction will be in 2020”, claimed the governor through his Twitter account.
El Gobierno Nacional acordó en China, emplazar en Río Negro la quinta central de energía nuclear de Argentina. Su construcción será en 2020 pic.twitter.com/4q6yZeyMK6
— Alberto Weretilneck (@Weretilneck) May 16, 2017
Weretilneck, who is in China with President Mauricio Macri, supported this operation, since it is an important news for the people of Río Negro, with an investment of more than 8 billion dollars, and more than 4,000 workers to be hired during several years. Additionally, 800 operators from different parts of the world will help in the construction of the new nuclear plant. In the location where the facilities are built there will be “hospitals, schools and electrical networks to transport the energy”.
However, the exact location of the new power station is still unknown. INVAP, the Argentine company providing design and construction of nuclear plants, developed a first analysis, identifying eight feasible areas to place it.
There are currently three operating nuclear plants in Argentina with 1,750 MW of capacity: Atucha-1 (357 MW, commisioned in 1974, the first one in Latin America), Embalse (648 MW, 1983), and Atucha-2 (745 MW, 2014). In 2014, Argentina and China signed a cooperation agreement to build the “Fourth Nuclear Plant”, to be placed in Lima, in the province of Buenos Aires, with 800 MW just next to Atucha-1 and Atucha-2. The construction of this fourth power station will begin in 2018.
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