Kazakhstan’s nuclear power plans - the mysteries only deepen - The Ecologist
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Russia has announced that it will build the first thermal nuclear power station in Kazakhstan, the world’s largest uranium producer, writes Komila Nabiyeva. But where in that vast country will it be located? Who will own and operate it? How many reactors are planned? Who will get the power? And will it ever actually happen?
As the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, signed the recent deal forming the Eurasian Economic Union with his counterparts from Belarus and Kazakhstan in the Kazakh capital city of Astana, one controversial agreement went relatively unnoticed.
On the same day, May 29, the Russian state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Kazakh national atomic company, Kazatomprom, on constructing the first nuclear power plant in Kazakhstan.
The MoU lays out intentions of both parties on design, construction, commissioning, operation and decommissioning of a nuclear power plant with water-water energy reactors (VVER) - that is, water-cooled water-moderated reactors - with an installed capacity of 300 to 1,200 MW, according to the Rosatom press release.
But other vital details about where the plant will be, and who will own and operate it, remain a mystery. In media interviews, Rosatom said the plant will be constructed in Kurchatov, a city in north-east Kazakhstan, near the former Soviet Semipalatinsk nuclear test site.