Vladimir Grachev, Chairman of State Duma Committee on Ecology

– The development of the nuclear power sector will help us to solve ecological problems

During its Dec 13 Government Hour the State Duma heard the report of the head of Rosatom Sergey Kiriyenko «On the Development of the Nuclear Power Sector of Russia and the Measures for Its Restructuring.» Commenting on the report, the chairman of the State Duma Committee on Ecology Vladimir Grachev says:

The report reflects the development of the decisions adopted by the President and Government and aimed at supporting the nuclear power sector. Of course, I mean the federal target program «Development of the Nuclear Power Industry of Russia in 2007–2010 and the Prospects till 2015» — a project allowing the sector not to reduce the existing level of electricity production. The report reflects the key aspects of Rosatom’s policy for increasing electricity output by NPPs. For this purpose, it is planned to build ordinary NPPs as well as BN-800 and floating nuclear thermal power plants. The planned development scale will allow Russia to retain its positions in nuclear power engineering and even to become the world leader due to a program of accelerated development.

The report gives top priority to ecological problems. Particularly, it points out that the problems of nuclear radiation security are the result of the development of the country’s nuclear power program in the past decade and must be given a complex solution through the launch of the federal target program on nuclear radiation security in 2008.

As the chairman of the State Duma Committee on Ecology, I can say that the complex of these two programs meets the toughest ecological requirements and allows to solve many problems. First, today, we are faced with the urgent necessity to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases in line with the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. And the development of the nuclear power sector will certainly help us to solve this problem — the global ecological problem of climate change.

Second, as the chairman of the State Duma Committee on Ecology, I agree that this exactly what the above-mentioned program on nuclear radiation security provides for. In his report, Kiriyenko touched on the urgent measures being taken in this direction already today. I would like to know that he thanked the State Duma deputies and, particularly, our committee for our active efforts to resolve the primary and most urgent problems of nuclear radiation security: for example, to ensure the safety of the Techa cascade of reservoirs containing low activity radioactive waste. The problem is being solved and the report allows us to hope that it will be given final solution. This also concerns the settlement of the people living near the village of Muslumovo in the Chelyabinsk region — this problem is also be resolved.
 
I would like to note once again that the above-mentioned problems are being solved with the active participation of the State Duma deputies. I cannot help applauding such a constructive approach.

In conclusion, I would like to say that the planned measures give us hope that the problems of nuclear radiation security will be effectively resolved and the development of the nuclear power sector will allow us to solve the global ecological problems.