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Kazakhstan: Government does hard sell on nuclear, but public remains wary.

It also remains to be worked out how the authorities intend to fund a project that could end up costing $12 billion.

eurasia.net Almaz Kumenov Oct 23, 2023

The authorities in Kazakhstan have for many years been toying with the idea of building a nuclear power plant, but they have lacked the nerve to take a decision in the face of strong public opposition.

In September, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev opted to punt his way out of the predicament by announcing a referendum on the question.

While Tokayev is evidently in favor of nuclear power, he is eager not to be seen as acting in defiance of broader sentiment………………………………………………………………………………………..

History makes the nuclear issue particularly emotive in Kazakhstan.

For four decades, the Soviet Union used the remote expanses of the northern Kazakh SSR as a testing site for its nuclear bombs. The consequences are detailed in stark terms by Togzhan Kassenova in her 2022 book Atomic Steppe.

“Following a nuclear explosion, radioactive particles mix with dust in the air and spread into the atmosphere. In unfavorable weather, this radioactive dust sweeps up into the clouds and rain, traveling far beyond the test site. The radioactive fallout from the Polygon contaminated not only grazing lands but also water wells, soil, and vegetation. Animals fed on contaminated pastures, and people who lived in the vicinity of the Polygon drank polluted water and milk and ate meat laced with radioisotopes,” Kassenova wrote.

More recently, incidents like the colossal explosion of an arms depot in the southern town of Arys in 2019 have fueled perceptions that safety standards are often flouted by the same people who are supposed to uphold them.

Madina Kuketayeva, coordinator of Anti-NPP, a public association created to resist the plant’s construction, cites corruption as the reason officials would be unable to categorically assure high safety levels.

“But even accident-free operation of the nuclear power plant would cause irreparable damage to the ecology of Lake Balkhash, lead to its drying out, and also harm the health of local residents,” Kuketayeva told Eurasianet.

Geopolitics is a factor too.

Kazakh opponents of the plant and Russia’s war in Ukraine look with alarm at what has happened at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is controlled by invading Russian forces. In July, the International Atomic Energy Agency expressed its profound concern over how Russian forces had installed anti-personnel mines around the plant just as Ukrainian troops were embarking on a counteroffensive to recapture lost territory………………………

Some objections to the nuclear power plant are more narrowly technical. Aset Nauryzbayev, an economist who formerly ran state power grid operator KEGOC, says he believes that Kazakhstan is able to build the needed number of renewable energy generators by 2030. Nuclear power is outdated and overly expensive, he argued.

“The maintenance of a nuclear power plant, if it is built, will cost $1.5 billion a year, and we ordinary citizens will pay this unreasonably high price to the future owners of the nuclear power plant,” Nauryzbayev told Eurasianet.

The construction of the nuclear power plant itself will also require huge investments – anywhere up to $12 billion by some reckoning. The source of that funding has not yet been publicly discussed……. https://eurasianet.org/kazakhstan-government-does-hard-sell-on-nuclear-but-public-remains-wary #nuclear #antinuclear #nuclearfree #NoNukes

October 25, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Kazakhstan