PRAGUE, October 25 (Itar-Tass) — The global nuclear power industry is back on development track after being rocked by the nuclear disaster at Japan’s Fukushima plant, the head of the Russian state-run corporation Rosatom, Sergei Kiriyenko, told the international forum of nuclear industry suppliers Atomex-Europe-2011 that opened in Prague on Tuesday.
“Restoration of nuclear power development programs began in different countries just six months after the Fukushima disaster,” he said adding that “the development program will be slightly smaller than before.”
Citing the estimates of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Kiriyenko noted that the global demand for nuclear power plants within the upcoming years is 350 power generating units.
“This is approximately by 20 percent less that it had been planned earlier, but anyway this means practically the doubling of the existing fleet of the world’s power generating units,” he said.
At the same time Rosatom plans to occupy up to 20 percent of this market, i.e. to build 70-80 nuclear power generating units, Kiriyenko said.
“At present, our backlog of orders is 29 units, of them 10 are in our country,” he said underlining that no partner abandoned Rosatom’s services after Japan’s disaster.
This year the corporation will commission three nuclear power generating units.
“We are steadily making steps to launch two units a year,” Kiriyenko said.