Putin leaves Kazakhstan without deal to build nuclear plant
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.
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Publish date: July 21, 2003
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The facility is expected to receive 8 tons of the spent nuclear fuel from the Russian designed reactors VVER-1000, RBMK-1000 and of foreign origin. The projects price tag is about $130 mln. Some parts of the unfinished RT-2 plant are rapidly being dismantled to construct the dry facility instead. The fossil fuel-burning power plant, a substitute for nuclear reactor, should produce 400 Gcal and 117 MW of energy. It is expected to serve both neighbouring Sosnovoborsk and Zheleznogorsk. According to the agreement between the Russian Atomic Ministry and the USA, the US party earmarks $150 mln for the fossil fuel-burning power plant provided the Russian party shuts down the controversial reactor for good in 2006. The Zheleznogorsk authorities, however, believe this sum is not enough and intend to ask for additional investment from the state budget.
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.
While Moscow pushes ahead with major oil, gas and mining projects in the Arctic—bringing more pollution to the fragile region—the spoils of these undertakings are sold to fuel Russia’s war economy, Bellona’s Ksenia Vakhrusheva told a side event at the COP 29, now underway in Baku, Azerbaijan.
A survey of events in the field of nuclear and radiation safety relating to Russia and Ukraine.