TEHRAN -- President Ebrahim Raisi says Iran will never abandon its “main and fundamental policy” of using nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
Speaking in the southern province of Bushehr, Raisi said Iran needs “wise and purposeful” planning for sustainable development of nuclear industry based on the latest international standards.
He said the necessary mechanism has been developed in this regard and provided to the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI).
“Nuclear science will determine the remarkable scientific development and progress of countries in the future, and we should not lag behind the world’s scientific movement,” the president stated.
He noted that the advancement of nuclear science would lead to the development of other technologies.
Raisi further said the Bushehr nuclear power plant is currently operating at its nominal capacity and producing over 1,000 megawatts of electricity, but the figure would be tripled with further development.
“One of the important missions of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran is to increase the country’s electricity generation capacity to up to 10,000 megawatts which will be materialized within the next three years,” he said.
In an exclusive interview with Sputnik Iran published on Sunday, Iran’s AEOI head Muhammad Eslami said Tehran will continue development of its peaceful nuclear program to meet its acute need for electricity and produce radiopharmaceuticals to be used in medicine, industry, agriculture, and the environment.
“Iran is now facing an acute need for electricity. Therefore, we have set a goal to meet 50 percent of the country’s demand for 10,000-16,000 MW of electricity by building new [nuclear] power plants with a combined capacity of 8,000 MW. This is currently the principal objective of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran,” he said.
The Busher power plant started operating in 2011 and reached full

capacity the following year, but Iran and Russia agreed to expand it.
They signed a number of documents in November 2014 for the construction of up to eight new nuclear power plants at the site and expand cooperation on peaceful use of atomic energy.
In November 2017, Iran began building two more nuclear reactors in a joint project with Russia’s Rosatom energy firm in Bushehr.