The 4th international forum AtomExpo-2012 which was held under the motto ‘World Nuclear Energy: One Year after Fukushima’ has closed in Moscow.
The extensive programme and the attendance of 1,300 delegates from 53 countries, including leading experts from the US, Brazil, European, African and South-Asian countries, as well as from the CIS demonstrated the growing trust in nuclear energy and understanding of the need to develop this industry. An agreement to build an NPP in Nigeria and to train personnel for its servicing was signed during the forum.
This summer we expect to sign documents for building the second phase of the Tianwan NPP in China. Four power-generating units have been successfully operating there and now another four are on the way. In addition, Russian and Chinese companies have discussed the possibility of signing documents this summer for the development of a full-scale industrial, rather than scientific, fast-breeder reactor.
Speaking at the opening of the forum, the head of RosAtom Sergey Kirienko said:
“After Fukushima, a large number of countries have weighed up the circumstances of building and running new nuclear power plants and have made a choice in favour of Russian technology. We are gratified that after the events in Japan the backlog of our international orders has not shrunk but, on the contrary, expanded from 12 to 21. In addition, - Sergey Kirienko said, - this year we are starting to build NPPs in Turkey, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Belarus. We can see that today the world is returning to the planned development of the nuclear energy sector. Last year, 10 new NPPs were launched in several countries and 3 of them were built according to Russian projects. Partnership in the development of nuclear energy has several very serious aspects, from raising the safety of NPP servicing, guaranteeing protection from radiation and using renewable sources to the commercial use of our products, technology and know-how,” the head of RosAtom said.
On the 4th of June 2012, South African Minister of Energy Elizabeth Dipuo Peters visited one of RosAtom’s research centres. The visit was on the agenda of Ms. Peters’ participation in AtomExpo-2012.
Apart from Nigeria and South Africa, other African countries, such as Tunis, Morocco, Algeria, Ghana, Senegal, Kenya, Uganda and Namibia are showing great interest in building NPPs. It is a very significant factor, because after the Fukushima-1 accident, several countries abandoned the use of NPPs, in particular, Germany and Japan, even though Fukushima-1 alone covered 30% of Japan’s demand in electric power.
A lot still remains to be done to raise the safety of NPPs, and the proof of this is the news about an accident at the US Indian Point NPP 50km from New York. However, the NPP’s administration insists that there was no radiation leakage.
One of the participants in the forum was TechSnabExport which is a branch of RosAtom. It has been delivering low-concentration uranium to the US and other countries for over 20 years. This uranium is obtained from processing high-concentration weapon-worthy uranium from the warheads of Soviet nuclear missiles that during the Cold War were targeted against the US, among other countries. Now we have been meeting Russia’s commitments according to this agreement for almost 20 years. The uranium is used for manufacturing nuclear fuel for NPPs. For example, Russia delivers uranium to the US according to a contract with the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC).
RosAtom is seriously interested in the Horizon project on building NPPs in the UK. The Russian corporation has never worked on the British nuclear market but it delivers nuclear fuel to that country.
The reserves of uranium excavated in Transbaikalia will last until 2050, but RosAtom needs additional supplies so as to fulfil all its plans. For this reason, Australia has sent a trial lot of its uranium to Russia.
The forum is over and both RosAtom and its partners and customers, whose number grows every year, are facing a tremendous amount of work.