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After Fukushima Russian NPPs were made ten times safer

Rosatom plans to generate 175.8 kilowatt-hours of electricity next year

MOSCOW, May 26 (Itar-Tass) —— The safety of Russia’s 33 nuclear reactors has been enhanced ten times after the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in Japan, the first deputy director of the concern Rosenergoatom, Vladimir Asmolov, said on Friday.

In his opinion, the measures to better the safety of reactors at all of Russia’s NPPs received an overall annual funding of 1.2 billion dollars lately. He also said that “safety checks involving IAEA specialists have been conducted at all of Russia’s nuclear power plants.”

In turn, another participant in the news conference Development of the Nuclear Power Industry in Russia and the World After the Fukushima Events, chief of the IAEA operational safety section, Miloslav Lipar, said that after the events at the Japanese nuclear power plant IAEA specialists have conducted more than 160 checks at most NPPs around the world.

“Four were held at Russian NPPs and the results were very good, the best results in the world,” he said.

Lipar explained that the IAEA specialists’ findings were nothing but recommendations and that the IAEA conducted such checks only at invitations from the IAEA member-countries operating nuclear power plants.

Lipar said that the IAEA maintained very productive cooperation with the Rosenergoatom concern in arranging inspections at Russian NPPs, and Russia was one of the first to have sent an invitation to inspect its nuclear power plants.

Asked by Itar-Tass if an operational safety check would be held at the first reactor of Iran’s Busher nuclear power plant, Lipar said that “an invitation to Busher from the Iranian company operating the nuclear power plant had been received already and the reactor’s safety will be tested in 2013. He added that “the IAEA has received an invitation from Bulgaria for a similar inspection of two reactors of the Russia-designed and built Kozlodui NPP.

Asmolov said that the construction and upgrading of Russia’s nuclear power reactors was proceeding under the approved program.

“At present new nuclear power reactors are being built at nine sites in Russia. In the wake of Fukushima the pace of their construction has not slowed down,” Asmolov said. About the condition of the country’s nuclear power industry he said that “the 33 operating nuclear power reactors having an overall capacity of 25.2 MW produced 172.2 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity last year.

“Rosatom plans to generate 175.8 kilowatt-hours of electricity next year,” Asmolov said.