02.07.2008 // Tomsky Vestnik

The 1st International Forum (Exhibition and Congress) ATOMCON 2008 took place in Moscow last week

The advisor of the governor of Tomsk region for the construction of NPPs Nikolay Drozdov took an active part in the work of the forum.

The significance of the event was confirmed by the participation of Director General of Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation Sergey Kiriyenko and Vice Premier of Russian Sergey Ivanov.

In his welcoming address, Ivanov said that it was the first time Russia was holding such a representative and authoritative international forum and that the key mission of the forum was to show the capacities of Russia’s nuclear power industry and its readiness for active cooperation for the development of the global economy.

Ivanov said that, when working on new promising sources of energy, sometimes not very successfully, as was the case with bio-fuel, we have no right to forget about nuclear energy. The capacities of peaceful nuclear energy are almost boundless and modern technologies allow us to make it very safe. That’s exactly why Russia has opted for large-scale construction of nuclear power plants.

Ivanov reminded the audience that Russia was planning to build 26 nuclear reactors by 2020. This is more than we built during the Soviet times. This program will receive unprecedentedly big financing. The budget alone will allocate 674bln RUR. The whole program will cost almost 1.5trl RUR. “Here, we rely not only on the state support but also on private investments,” Ivanov said.

Almost 500 companies from Russia and foreign countries (France, Germany) attended the congress. Among the foreign guests were Nuclear Power Corporation of India, China National Nuclear Corporation, Kazatomprom, AREVA and Alstom as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency and the World Association of Nuclear Operators.

The congress took place on the first day. It was chaired by Director General of Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation Sergey Kiriyenko and Director of Atomenergoprom OJSC Vladimir Travin. Deputy Director of Atomenergoprom Kirill Komarov made a report on the development of power machine building in Russia, President of TVEL Yuri Olenin — on the state and the prospects of nuclear fuel modernization. Representatives of IAEA, WANO and some foreign countries made reports on the most urgent problems in the field.

The exhibition has shown that our researchers, designers, equipment producers and nuclear fuel suppliers are ready for the large-scale development of Russia’s nuclear power industry.

The participants in the plenary session discussed different problems concerning the prospects of nuclear energy in Russia and worldwide. They pointed out that only by developing nuclear energy (as many as 200 new nuclear reactors are supposed to be launched by 2030) will it be possible to prevent the ecological disaster that can be caused by the greenhouse effect and global heating. If the world continues burning gas and oil, the Earth will not be able to endure this burden.

One of the key topics of the forum was the safe operation of nuclear power plants. Ales John from the Moscow Center of WANO made an informative and convincing report on this problem. The key mission of WANO is to deepen cooperation among nuclear operators worldwide with a view to enhance the safety of world NPPs. Today, there are no more technical secrets in the nuclear industry. All new projects undergo mutual examinations. All new technologies (including know-hows) aimed to enhance the safety of NPPs are made known to the whole nuclear community and can be used by other designers in their projects. One of the most effective programs of WANO is partner inspections of existing nuclear power plants (once in six years). Experts from WANO and other NPPs visit a plant so as to see if it complies with the safety standards and to learn how it deals with different problems and events. WANO summarizes the best experience received from each NPP and disseminates it among other plants. It has developed common safety and efficiency criteria, which are used during partner inspections.

All the foreign rapporteurs pointed out the high development level of Russia’s nuclear power industry and its close compliance with international standards in the field of safety and efficiency.

The exhibition presented the capacities of Rosatom companies.

Moscow and St.Petersburg Atomenergoproekts presented information about facilities designed by their specialists, automated design and probabilistic analysis systems, software for modeling the work of equipment in different situations.

Atomredmetzoloto and TVEL Corporation presented their projects for mining of uranium and production of nuclear fuel, Hydropress and OKBM – innovative projects of nuclear reactors, OMZ and Atomenergomash – equipment for nuclear power plants.

Rosatom presented a new web-site “Radiation Situation at Rosatom Companies” (www.russianatom.ru). This resource is open for everybody and is supposed to put an end to speculations and allegations about accidents at Russian nuclear power plants.

Atomexpo OJSC presented model project of Information Center of Nuclear Power Industry of new generation. Such centers are supposed to provide detailed information about the work of nuclear power plants and other nuclear companies with the help of computer graphics and animation. This year such centers will be opened in Tomsk and Voronezh