Leonid Bolshov, director of Nuclear Safety Institute

– Alliances with powerful power equipment producers are very useful

Globalization and merger are well underway in different spheres and nuclear industry is not an exception. The Japanese are very actively consolidating world assets: they have bought Westinghouse, established close cooperation with General Electric and even formed some alliance with Areva. I think we cannot stand aside, especially as we urgently need power equipment. That’s why we need alliances with powerful producers of power equipment.

Today, all original projects in the field of nuclear technologies are developed a limited number of countries. Japan mostly improves the nuclear reactor technologies designed in the United States and has no original projects of its own even though it is actively engaged in relevant research.

In this light, the alliance of Atomenergoprom and Toshiba may prove quite useful for both Russia and Japan.

We must admit that we have missed the big technological revolution that took place in the world some 30 years ago: revolution in the field of management technologies. The quick construction of complex facilities (the Japanese build nuclear reactors in just 36 months) is the result of that revolution. That’s why the alliance with companies that actively use management technologies will be very useful for us. This is, certainly, one of the key points of Atomenergoprom’s agreement with Toshiba.

Japan is not a nuclear power: it has very scarce natural resources and simply can’t have some technologies. So, it may greatly avail of our technologies and research projects.