News

Russia not to build new NPPs, but complete ten reactors

Publish date: May 9, 2003

Russia will not build any new nuclear power plants, but will finalize the ten reactors already under construction, ITAR-TASS reported.

Those reactors had begun to be built before the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster of 1986, Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said on April 23rd. The completion rate of unfinished reactors is 70-80 percent and capital investments required to finalize them will be relatively small, he said. Among others the Atomic Energy Ministry will resume work on the Primorye nuclear power plant, expected to make the Primorye Territory self-sufficient in power supply and export electricity to Japan. “In designing and building the nuclear power plant we shared out plans with the Japanese side and met with its understanding,” he said. The 30 reactors of Russia’s nuclear power plants account for 13 percent of Russia’s electricity output. In the European part of Russia their share is about 40 percent, Rumyantsev said. On January 1, 2003 the world’s nuclear power plants had a total 438 nuclear power reactors with an aggregate capacity of 353 gigawatts. Most of the reactors are in the United States, Europe, and Japan. The International Atomic Energy Agency believes that over the 17 years since Chernobyl nuclear power plants’ safety and security systems have reached a high degree of sophistication.