The End for Russia's "Nuclear Renaissance"?

THE END FOR RUSSIAN "NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE"?
According to Russian government, number of new nuclear reactors
planned to be built by 2015 will be cut for 60%. But even that number
of nuclear units would be hard to build. As environmental groups has
been saying for years, Russian nuclear development program is far from
reality.

TODAY Russian media reported about massive cuts in number of power
plants to be built until 2015. According to leading business newspaper
"Vedomosti", referring to the data of the Ministry of energy, the
number of new nuclear reactors will be cut for over 60%.

According to Ecodefense estimations, Russia may save about $25
billions if it will never build units which presently removed from
2015 list. Moreover, spending this amount for construction of the
natural gas' power plants may bring 3 times more electricity, compared
to nuclear.

According to the scheme of energy facilities location until 2020
(state program outlining the plan for construction of nuclear, coal,
gas, hydro plants during next decade), "Rosatom" planned to put online
13,2 GWt of new nuclear capacities until 2015. This is equal to 13
units of VVER-1000 design or 11 units of VVER-1200 design. Under
reduced plan, only 5,2 GWt of new nuclear capacities will added. But
even reduced number of reactors will be hard to build, environmental
campaigners said.

The scheme of energy facilities location until 2020 was approved by
Russian government in 2008. Environmental groups organized protests on
the day of approval in over 20 cities because plan includes increased
number of nuclear and coal plants which will increase risks for
public health and environment. Campaigners also protested because
government excluded environmental groups when decision-making process
what resulted in anti-environmental and poor-quality document.

"Reducing number of nuclear reactors to be built in next 5 years is
good news but this is just reflection of reality. When plans were
approved in 2008, it was already clear that Russia can not afford to
build dozens of reactors during decade. First of all, "Rosatom"
doesn't have enough heavy machinery capacity to produce reactors even
for domestic plans, and there are also foreign contracts", said
Vladimir Slivyak, co-chairman for Russian environmental group
Ecodefense campaigning against new reactors.

"Why Russian government approved the program that can not be
implemented? It looks like "Rosatom" just decided that increasing
number of reactors on paper will bring them more funds from federal
budget. Now plans and amount of funds will be reduced which will
affect both planned and under construction reactors. Russian "nuclear
renaissance" may well be over, even if it did not start yet. And this
is good news because reactors are expensive, inefficient and dangerous
just as it was 24 years ago when Chernobyl happened", Slivyak added.

Now there are 31 nuclear reactors under operation in Russia producing
16% of electricity. Several oldest and the most dangerous reactors
such as RBMKs and VVER-440 obtained extended licenses when operation
resource was over. Earlier, Russian prime-minister Vladimir Putin
declared Russia will build 26 new reactors until 2020.

For more information:
Ecodefense in Moscow - phone 7766281 or (903)2997584
e-mail: [email protected] http://www.anti-atom.ru
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