As Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin announced the allocation of 53\u00a0billion roubles ($1.77\u00a0billion) of federal money towards the construction of new nuclear power in 2010, the country could also be poised to buy into a Bulgarian nuclear power plant.<\/p>\n
Putin announced the funding for domestic new build in a meeting on investment in the Russian power industry on 24\u00a0February.<\/p>\n
The 53\u00a0billion roubles of federal money is part of Rosenergoatom\u2019s investment program for the year worth a total of 163.3\u00a0billion roubles ($5.45\u00a0billion) including 101.7\u00a0billion roubles ($3.39\u00a0billion) for nuclear plant construction with almost half of this coming from Rosenergoatom funds.<\/p>\n
As well as the funding for new reactor construction, the Russian government has confirmed a development program that will see fast neutron reactors become a technological priority in the next decade. Plans call for the continuation of the existing sodium-cooled fast reactor program with units of about 800\u00a0MWe, with a 100\u00a0MWe lead-bismuth-cooled fast reactor, known as SVBR (Svintsovo-Vismutovyi Bystryi Reaktor ) to be built by 2015. This is to be followed by a lead-cooled 300\u00a0MWe BREST fast reactor by 2020. In addition, a 150\u00a0MWt multi-purpose fast research reactor (MBIR) is to be built by 2020. The total fast reactor budget to 2020\u00a0is about 60\u00a0billion roubles ($2\u00a0billion), largely from the federal budget. The program is intended to result in a 70% growth in exports of high technology equipment, works and services rendered by the Russian nuclear industry by 2020.<\/p>\n
Russia to buy Belene?<\/p>\n
Separately, Russia could be on the verge of taking a controlling share of Bulgaria\u2019s Belene nuclear power plant only days after Bulgaria turned down the offer of a \u20ac2.0\u00a0billion ($2.7\u00a0billion) loan from Rosatom to finance the construction of the plant. According to Rosatom head Sergei Kiryenko, Russia is planning instead to invest \u20ac1.9\u00a0billion ($2.6\u00a0billion) in the project over the next two years. The funding would be provided on the understanding that the investment would be made on a temporary basis, but if the Bulgarian government was unable to find another investor, then Russia would become a stakeholder taking up to a potential 80% share in the station.<\/p>\n
This would mean that Belene could effectively become the first foreign nuclear power plant to be owned by Russia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin announced the allocation of 53\u00a0billion roubles ($1.77\u00a0billion) of federal money towards the construction of new nuclear power in 2010, the country could also be poised to buy into a Bulgarian nuclear power plant. Putin announced the funding for domestic new build in a meeting on investment in the Russian…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-novosti-otrasli"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.6","language":"en","enabled_languages":["ru","en"],"languages":{"ru":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n