News

Russia allocates $35m for construction of fast neutron nuclear reactor

Publish date: November 17, 2005

On November 14th , the Russian Finance Minister Alexey Kudrin announced that funding of 1 billion rubles ($35 million) has been included in next year’s federal budget for construction of the BN-800 fast neutron reactor at the Beloyarsk nuclear power plant.

Despite the promises to support the new reactor in the Russian State Duma in March, the nuclear plant will receive only $35m instead of $210m needed for the next year. This year, the Beloyarsk NPP received no money at all for the new reactor construction, and the plant had to use its own money to continue the construction. The lifetime of Russia’s only fast-breeder reactor, the BN-600 at the Beloyarsk NPP, ends in 2010. The new reactor unit’s price is $1.8 billion and can be finished only in 2012-2015 with the current scarcity financing. So, the lifetime of the BN-600 is likely to be extended, UralPolit.ru reported.