YAKUTSK, November 14. /TASS/. Building of mini nuclear power plants (NPP) in Yakutia's northern regions would require investments in the worn-out infrastructures of the Arctic compounds, as well as implementation there of development projects, Professor at the North-Eastern Federal University and Yakutia's expert of the pricing policies committee Tuyara Gavrilyeva says.
"Those power plants (designed by the Afrikantov Experimental Design Bureau for Mechanical Engineering - TASS) besides the electric energy generate heat energy, what requires certain investments in the worn-out infrastructures of the Arctic compounds," he said. "In some cases it may become necessary to relocate housing and social facilities closer to the source. The very structure of the maintenance infrastructures in the Arctic compounds may be changed greatly, including because of refusing from central heating, or because of using electricity, which is cheaper, for the heating purposes."
Small nuclear power plants should be built in promising compounds, he continued. "Under current conditions, getting a mighty source of energy may cause only further shrinking of the population spread system, it may cause the population concentration in villages, which would affect the traditional forms of life there."
The expert points to the positive aspects of using small nuclear power plants as the nuclear energy does not cause greenhouse gases' emissions, unlike in use of coal, natural gas or oil products, and this approach complies fully with objectives of the international Paris Agreement and Russia's Climate Doctrine. "Some studies show that using coal as fuel causes bigger radioactive emissions than in the nuclear energy," she continued.
No doubt, implementation of this project would have a negative impact on businesses of coal or oil products' suppliers, river and ground transport businesses. "We forecast, a few mines in Yakutia would be closed then," the expert forecast.
TASS wrote earlier, that the Afrikantov Bureau presented at the Sakhapromexpo-2017 industrial show a line of small nuclear power plants, which could solve the problem of energy shortage in Yakutia's far-away compounds.