[NukeNet] Russia Plans Large Nuke Power Expansion In Their Infinite Wisdom

[Bill Smirnow]

   Too bad the people planning this can't bunk in the Chernobyl sarcophogus:


    http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Russia-Nuclear-Power.html
    Russians Plan More Nuclear Power Reactors
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By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 16, 2007
Filed at 3:52 p.m. ET

MOSCOW (AP) -- Government officials said Friday that Russia will build two
nuclear reactors annually through 2015, and increase to four a year by 2020
in an effort to sharply increase atomic power generation, according to
Russian news agencies.

First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, one of two likely contenders to
succeed President Vladimir Putin in next year's election, said Russia should
not rely exclusively on dwindling oil, gas and other hydrocarbons.

''The need to diversify our energy balance is obvious,'' Ivanov was quoted
as saying by ITAR-Tass, Interfax and RIA Novosti.

Russia has 31 reactors at 10 nuclear power plants, accounting for 16 percent
to 17 percent of its electricity generation. Putin has called for raising
the share of nuclear-generated power to at least 25 percent by 2030.

Ivanov said that Russia will launch two 1,000-megawatt nuclear reactors a
year under a program for which the government has allocated $26 billion
through 2015.

''Nuclear industry must become a backbone of Russia's modern energy
sector,'' Ivanov was quoted as saying.

Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the Federal Nuclear Power Agency, said that
starting in 2016, Russia will be building three reactors a year and four
annually beginning in 2020, the agencies said.

In recent years, Russia has overcome a public backlash against nuclear power
that followed the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, and the government has supported
efforts to revive the industry.