Monthly Highlights from the Russian Arctic, October 2024
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution and climate change.
News
Publish date: April 9, 2004
News
Russia has offered to supply floating nuclear plants to India as a way of bypassing international restrictions on nuclear technology transfers.
The NSG restrictions will not be broken as Russia plans to build a floating nuclear power plant and trawl it to India’s shores. The plant will be operated by Russian personnel and India will only buy electricity.One 70-MW floating unit can generate enough electricity and thermal energy to support a town of 50,000 people or provide enough fresh water for one million people. Mounted on a barge it can be towed to any point along India’s coastline and operate for four years without reloading nuclear fuel. However, the cost of electricity produced by the $150-million floating plant will be twice as high as for onland reactors. Russia is planning to construct a full-fledged floating nuclear plant by the year 2008 to supply power to the country’s remote northern areas.
Russia is now constructing two nuclear reactors at Koodankulam in Tamil Nadu under an accord signed before the NSG clamped down its restrictions in 1992. Being a member of the NSG, Russia cannot have any new nuclear deals with India, but floating reactors are different.
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution and climate change.
A survey of events in the field of nuclear and radiation safety relating to Russia and Ukraine.
A visit last week by Vladimir Putin and a Kremlin entourage to Astana, Kazakhstan sought in part to put Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, on good footing with local officials.
Russia is formally withdrawing from a landmark environmental agreement that channeled billions in international funding to secure the Soviet nuclear legacy, leaving undone some of the most radioactively dangerous projects and burning one more bridge of potential cooperation with the West.