Russia to shift energy focus on nuclear power - Ivanov

The Russian government will review its energy strategy in April to increase the share of nuclear power, hydroelectric and coal industries in power generation, the first deputy prime minister said Friday.

Russia is likely to experience an energy deficit in the future if it continues to rely on thermal power generation mainly based on non-renewable reserves of natural gas.

"The nuclear power industry must become a solid foundation for power generation in Russia if we want to reduce our dependence on natural gas," said Sergei Ivanov, addressing the collegiate of the Federal Nuclear Power Agency (Rosatom).

"We must diversify our fuel and energy balance and develop efficient technologies to ensure energy security and increase competitiveness in our economy," he said.

Russia has 31 operating power reactors at 10 nuclear power plants (NPPs) with a total installed capacity of 23.2 MWe. The average current share of NPPs in electricity generation is 16.5 percent.

Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Rosatom, said Friday that Russia is planning to put in service three power reactors annually starting 2016, and in 2018-20 this number could increase to four.

Ivanov, who recently was entrusted with the important task of supervising the country's nuclear power and defense industries, said a new executive body will be formed in the near future to take centralized control over the civilian nuclear power sector following the merger of four existing nuclear power "dinosaurs" - TVEL, Techsnabexport, Rosenergoatom and Atomstroyexport.

The State Duma, the lower house of Russia's parliament, passed in January a presidential bill to reform the country's nuclear power sector and to facilitate its development.

"We are going to establish a holding company, Atomenergoprom, which will assume control over the civilian nuclear power sector," Ivanov said, adding that

Atomenergoprom, which will be wholly controlled by the government, is expected to be a large full-cycle corporation engaged in activities ranging from uranium extraction, fuel fabrication and electric power generation, to the construction of nuclear power plants, both domestically and abroad.

Ivanov also said Friday that Russia could expand its uranium ore production and become third in the world in terms of identified uranium ore reserves in the future.

A 2006 report Uranium 2005: Resources, Production and Demand, jointly prepared by the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), estimates the identified amount of conventional uranium resources to be about 4.7 million tons.

The report places Russia ninth on the list of countries that possess largest reserves of uranium ore with 172,000 tons (over 3% of global supply).

SOURCE: RIA Novosti

DATE: Mar 18, 2007

Topics: NPP, Russia