MOSCOW, May 19. /TASS/. Nine fast-neutron nuclear power units are planned to be built in Russia as part of the General Plan for the Allocation of Electric Power Facilities by 2042, Alexander Lokshin, First Deputy Director General of the Rosatom State Corporation, said at the plenary session of the IAEA FR-26 international conference in Beijing.
"The gradual transition to fast reactor technologies and a closed nuclear fuel cycle is a necessary and strategically important guideline for the entire global nuclear energy sector. Fast reactors with a closed fuel cycle are not just a means of increasing the efficiency of nuclear energy, but a prerequisite for its long-term existence," Lokshin was quoted as saying in a Rosatom statement. According to him, as the fast reactor fleet expands, their contribution to conserving natural uranium and solving the problem of managing spent nuclear fuel from thermal reactors will increase.
The FR-26 conference is held in Beijing from May 18 to 22, 2026. It is the fifth IAEA International Conference on Fast Reactors and Related Fuel Cycles, following similar events in Kyoto (2009), Paris (2013), Yekaterinburg (2017), and Vienna (2022). The theme of this year's meeting is "From Innovation to Implementation." The program includes nine thematic tracks: innovative fast reactor designs, safety and licensing, fuel cycle technologies and sustainability, fuel and materials, experimental facilities, modeling and simulation, economics and non-energy applications, commissioning and decommissioning, public communications, and training.
The honorary chairman of the conference is Yevgeny Adamov, the science director of Breakthrough - Rosatom's comprehensive program to develop next-generation nuclear energy technology based on fast reactors with a closed nuclear fuel cycle. The key facilities at the Experimental and Demonstration Energy Complex in Seversk, the Tomsk Region, include the BREST-OD-300 lead-cooled reactor, a fuel fabrication/reprocessing module, and a spent fuel reprocessing module.