Mexico abandoning nuclear reactors to focus on natural gas-fired electricity plant

Mexico is abandoning plans to build 10 nuclear reactors , will focus instead on natural gas-fired electricity plants
Nov2, 2011
Albuquerque Journal

Bloomberg reports yesterday that state-owned oil producer Pemex found evidence of up to 300 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the Coahuila region in the past year, and the country will reportedly seek private investment of about $10 billion during five years to expand its natural gas pipeline network. Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE) plans to invest 66.3 billion pesos ($4.9 billion) in 2011 and 90.4 billion pesos ($670.3 million) in 2012, mainly on building six new plants that will use fossil fuels and is reconfiguring other facilities to use natural gas, the article said.

The country had considered building new nuclear power plants as part of a plans to boost capacity to 86 GW within 15 years, from about 50 GW, and now prefers gas for cost reasons.

Mexico, one of three Latin American nations that currently use nuclear power, is abandoning plans to build as many as 10 new nuclear reactors and will focus on natural gas-fired electricity plants after boosting discoveries of the fuel.

Opinion:

“This is a very good decision by the Mexican government,” said James Williams, an economist at WTRG Economics, an energy research firm in London, Arkansas. With a power generation project based on gas “you can build multiple plants at a much lower cost and much faster pace than a nuclear facility.”