Iran plans 19 nuclear plants

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran plans to build 19 more nuclear power plants and will soon solicit international bids for their construction, a lawmaker said.

“Contracts for the construction of 19 nuclear power plants, each with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts, will be put into international tender in the near future,” Kazem Jalali was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.

Jalali, a member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said the bids will be in line with parliamentary legislation that calls for production of 20,000 megawatts of electricity through nuclear power plants in the future.

Jalali’s comments do not necessarily represent the position of Iran’s executive branch, headed by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.