ASTANA, August 21. /TASS/. The nuclear power plant Rosatom Corporation will build in Kazakhstan will be able to provide energy to the republic for 100 years, Rosatom head Alexey Likhachev told Kazakh journalist Akmaral Batalova in an interview for her YouTube channel Dome of the Yurt.
According to him, nuclear power projects, "unfortunately, take much time to implement," and the commissioning of two reactors with a capacity of 1,200 MW each takes 9-10 years. "But, fortunately, they are also long-term, because such a reactor will work for 100 years," he said.
Likhachev noted that the design capacity of a reactor stands at 60 years. "Rostechnadzor [watchdog] simply does not give us permission to declare a larger design capacity yet, because there is no confirmation. But we are confident that 60 [years] can be safely taken as a basis, adding at least 20 [years], and most likely 40 years of extended operation," he said, adding that each stage of extending the life of the reactors is "absolutely controlled."
Likhachev also noted that the start of exploration work at the site for the future station in the Kazakh village of Ulken on August 8 was the zero stage of work. According to him, besides being a technical event, its emotional coloring is also important.
"It was a kind of ceremony, a procedure for publicly making commitments to the people of Kazakhstan," he said, adding that residents of the village said at the ceremony that they were waiting for the construction of a nuclear power plant.
Kazakhs supported the construction of a nuclear power plant in a referendum in October 2024. This year the republic chose Rosatom as the leader of the construction consortium as the Russian corporation had made the best offer.