On 11 October 2026 the first nuclear reaction began at the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant in Pabna, the largest single installation Bangladesh has ever built. Writing in Counterpoint, SAFI Fellow Dr. Jens Stanislawski observes that the moment drew remarkably little public attention — and argues that the hardest questions about the project remain unanswered.
The reactors’ passive safety systems were designed with the lessons of Fukushima in mind, but they buy roughly three days, and no plant of this type has operated on a monsoon delta. Dr. Stanislawski examines what a flood lasting weeks would mean for the roads, switchyards and shift crews a reactor depends on; how corruption and a regulator without full independence could compound a crisis; and why he has found no accident study that models how contaminated water would move through the delta over decades. He also sets the legal cap on operator liability against the far greater cost of past nuclear accidents.
The piece closes with a plain warning: this is a project Bangladesh cannot afford to get wrong.
Published in Counterpoint on 14 October 2026.