Troubled story of Russia’s new nuclear reactors plan

RUSSIAN NUCLEAR INDUSTRY OVERVIEW, Earth Life Johannesburg Vladimir Slivyak Russian environmental group, Ecodefense

National Research University Higher School of Economics Moscow December 2014

“…….New reactors

In 2008, the Russian government approved the “General Layout Plan for Siting Power Generation

Facilities for the period until 2020.” It included construction of 13.2 GW in new reactor capacities

within the next five years. By March 2010, this goal had been downscaled to just 5.2 GW. After

auditing the Ministry of Energy in March 2010, the Russian Audit Chamber announced it would

not be possible to achieve the target outlined in the plan. As a result, only about 40% of planned

reactors were expected to come online by 2015.11

In July 2012, Russia’s overall nuclear power development target for 2020 – 44 GW – was again

reduced, to 30.5 GW.12 The new target remains a pie-in-the-sky figure because the Russian

industry is unable to produce more than one reactor per year, according to the industry’s top

officials.

As of today, Rosenergoatom – Rosatom’s reactor-operating branch – lists ten new reactors as under

construction: eight VVER units, one fast breeder that is approaching the 30-year anniversary of

its construction, and a small floating nuclear plant.13

At least two of the VVER projects on this list have seen no progress since mid-2013 – the two units

of a planned Baltic NPP in Kaliningrad Region. A variety of reasons caused the construction to

freeze indefinitely, including the limited market for the future electricity and harsh criticism

by environmental movements on the project’s safety and financing issues. Rosatom sought

funding for this project in European Union countries, in hopes to involve foreign investors and

energy companies in building the plant and exporting its energy to Europe. These negotiations

took three years and proved unsuccessful. Russia’s neighbor and EU member, Lithuania, also

repeatedly criticized Rosatom over the project’s safety and lack of transparency. Environmental

groups from both Russia and Europe successfully campaigned against this project by pushing

European banks and companies to stay away. In 2013, the German Hypovereinsbank and the

French BNP Paribas announced in written form that they would not join the project. Earlier, the Italian energy giant ENEL had stated that it was doing its assessment and looking into the

possibility of investing in the Kaliningrad project. That led to heavy criticism by Russian and

Italian environmental groups in 2011-2012. The company never announced its decision. The

French bank Société Générale was under heavy pressure from Russian and French campaigners

in 2013 over its possible involvement in the Kaliningrad project. Société Générale’s managers

said in the beginning of 2013 that the bank planned to assess the possibility of joining the project

in Kaliningrad by providing the funds for turbine manufacturing by the French firm Alstom. No

decision was announced before the Russian government put the project on hold in June 2013.

Two more VVER-1200 reactors are currently under construction at the Leningrad nuclear plant;

construction started in 2008 and 2010, respectively. The units were slated for grid connection

by 2013 and 2016. Both projects, however, hit delays with grid connection dates pushed back

to 2016 and 2018, partly on account of a major accident that occurred at the construction site on

July 17, 2011. A 600-800-ton reinforcement cage of the containment building fell on its concrete

frame. The weight of the cage caused the concrete frame to crack and the entire structure had to

be replaced, leading to massive additional costs.14

Another two units on Rosenergoatom’s current construction list are so-called “floating reactors”

(Akademik Lomonosov 1, 2), 32 MW each. Rosatom began this project in 2007 with plans to

complete it by 2010. As of 2014, the completion date had been revised to 2019.15 Among the major

concerns with the project are the high risk of accidents, vulnerability to piracy and terrorism

threats, and the increased risk of proliferation of nuclear materials, if the project is taken to serial

production and floating nuclear power plants are deployed on a wide international scale.16

However, two units each at the Novovoronezh plant, Novovoronezh-2 (VVER-1200, under

construction since 2007, delayed for 2-3 years), and Rostov (VVER-1000, under construction

since 1983) are close to completion. Russian media repeatedly reported on corruption and safety

concerns related to the Novovoronezh-2 construction, but there was no investigation of these

claims by Rosatom.17

Another unit that is nearly completed is the fourth unit at Beloyarsk. This is a fast breeder r of the

BN-800 design; construction started back in 1986. So far, the only commercial breeder reactor

in operation in the world is the highly problematic Beloyarsk-3, of the BN-600 design. It was

passing its 30-years-in-operation mark back in 2013 and got its license extended for another 15

years. ……..http://earthlife.org.za/www/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/russian-nuc-ind-overview.pdf

December 8, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, Reference, Russia

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