Russia plans to raise its share of the growing global market for constructing and operating nuclear power plants to 25 percent, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Thursday, as a "nuclear revival" in many countries pushes up demand for the services.
The country currently accounts for only 16 percent of the market but has "extremely ambitious plans" in the sector, he said.
State corporation Rosatom is competing with France's Areva, Japan's Toshiba and Canada's Cameco on the market. A total of 56 reactors are currently under construction worldwide, and a reactor can cost as much as $8 billion to build.
Putin also said the long-delayed Bushehr nuclear plant in Iran will start operating this summer. Vladimir Pavlov, chief of construction at the plant, said at a meeting with Putin that the launch was scheduled for July.
Putin held a meeting on the nuclear power industry after overseeing the opening of a new reactor in Volgodonsk, Rostov region, that will begin operating at its full capacity of 1,000 megawatts in October. Nuclear energy is experiencing renewed interest from governments around the globe as a clean source of power, despite concerns over storage of radioactive spent fuel, and Russia is hoping to capitalize on the trend.
“We have secured a substantial number of orders, but we need to move on,” Putin said at the meeting.
Rosatom is unlikely to line up construction deals in developed-world countries such as the United States, which is currently rethinking its nuclear power policy. In January, U.S. President Barack Obama promised $55 billion in federal loan guarantees from next year's budget to help build new nuclear plants. Instead, Rosatom has courted such countries as Vietnam, China, India and Turkey, which also have plans for increased consumption of nuclear energy.
Rosatom chief Sergei Kiriyenko said Russia expected to sign a contract with China later this month or next month for the construction of two more reactors at the Tianwan plant. Together, the reactors will cost 1.3 billion euros ($1.8 billion), a source in China said last month, Interfax reported.
China leads the way in the so-called “nuclear revival,” with 21 reactors being built, followed by Russia with 11, South Korea with six and India with five. The United States has the most reactors in the world, 104, but the reactors use old technology and are no longer cost-effective. The last one went on line about three decades ago.
Many countries, such as Sweden, have reversed their attitude toward nuclear energy. In a recent poll, 52 percent of Swedes said the country should continue operating nuclear power plants, despite a referendum in 1980 requiring that they all be phased out by this year.
In Volgodonsk, Putin officially ordered the launch of the first nuclear plant constructed as part of a program to expand the share of nuclear-generated energy to 20 percent from the current 16 percent by 2020 by building 26 new reactors.
The next two reactors at the plant may start operating in 2013 and 2015, Kiriyenko said.