07.07.2008 // Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung

Article by Director General of Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation Sergey Kiriyenko in Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung

The food crisis, global heating and unevenly distributed development resources, i.e. all the topics on the G8’s agenda, are bound into a tight knot by the shortage of energy and the consequent growth in prices.    

The earlier forecasts on the growth of energy consumption and the development of new energy technologies have not come true: energy consumption is growing much quicker, while new sources energy will come into wide use no earlier than 2030.

The saying that money can solve any problem is no longer an axiom. The oil price is steadily climbing upwards, but even $130 per barrel will not be able to create enough new fields for meeting the needs of the growing economy. Energy shortage has long ceased to be just a financial problem and is already imposing physical restrictions.

Alternative energy sources are unable to fill this gap, while the example of ethanol has proved the axiom that energy is never cheap.

Of course, nuclear energy cannot be the only way-out of all these crises but it can certainly help to solve the problems.

Every year nuclear power plants save Europe from additional 700mln tons of CO2 and Japan – from 270mln tons.

By 2030 Russia is planning to increase the share of NPPs in its total energy production from 16% to 25%-30%, i.e. to consequently reduce the emission of greenhouse gases by 10%-15%. This is not just a declaration of intention but a firm decision backed up with active financing.

Until now the nuclear power industry has been just enhancing the capacities of existing nuclear reactors thereby debarring poorly developed countries (first of all, in Africa) from the benefits of nuclear energy. Today, the industry is ready to supply a whole number of states with reactors of small and medium capacity — something that can fuel their development.

One more advantage of the nuclear power industry is its ability to generate energy and to desalinate water at one and the same time. This kills two birds with one stone: on the one hand, most of the African countries are short of fresh water for developing their agriculture, on the other, fresh water may become the source of the biggest crisis ever unless we find mechanisms of its cheap production.

Hence, the whole point of the present changes is that the access to stable and cheap energy sources is becoming the key precondition for the economic stability and development of any country. More and more states – developing and developed – are beginning to realize the need to develop nuclear energy. Today, we are witnessing a phenomenon called “nuclear renaissance”: the most realistic forecasts say that as many as 600 new nuclear reactors will be built worldwide by 2030 (today, we have 435 reactors).

Hence, we must not only toughen restrictive measures and bans in the framework of the nonproliferation regime. We must be able to combine two basic rights: the right of any country to have access to the benefits of the peaceful use of nuclear energy, on the one hand, and the right of the world community to demand full compliance with the safety and nonproliferation rules, on the other. This is an absolutely new legal framework and it can create an absolutely new economic and moral-ethical situation as now we will no longer have legal, economic or moral right take prohibitive stance only. 

Russia is not just the author of the initiative to build a new system for safe development of nuclear energy but it is also an active promoter of real mechanisms to guarantee the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.

We have already suggested building an infrastructure of international centers for provision of nuclear fuel cycle services, a network that will guarantee equal access to nuclear energy to all concerned parties in full compliance with the nonproliferation regime and under the close control of the International Atomic Energy Agency. We have already established an international uranium enrichment center in Angarsk. We are also considering the possibility of creating an IAEA-guaranteed reserve of low-enriched uranium on the basis of the center. This would be a strong guarantee that any country, irrespective of any political situation, will be supplied with fuel.

However, there is a mentality paradox that is seriously curbing the development of nuclear energy: today, nuclear energy must be developed for the sake of environment protection and social welfare, i.e. for the selfsame reasons it was discarded after the accidents at Three Miles Island (the United States) and Chernobyl (the USSR). In this light, the statements by highly-reputed experts, like the founder of Greenpeace Patrick Moore, that the opposition to nuclear energy was a mistake and that nuclear energy can be the major rebuff to the looming problem of global heating are extremely valuable.

The sooner we get rid of the politicized stereotypes of the past, the sooner we will be able to develop nuclear energy and to lift the barriers set on the European and American markets in the past for protecting own producers from glut of nuclear fuel services but having become quite useless now that this glut has turned into a shortage. The clear political signal will certainly reform the banking community, who is yet keeping aloof from nuclear projects under the speculative pressure of radical public organizations.

A system crisis can be overcome by a system approach only, i.e. by large-scale international cooperation. We suggest and will keep suggesting such an approach to our G8 colleagues and to all our partners in the field of peaceful use of nuclear energy.

Director General of Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation
Sergey Kiriyenko