Yelena Burlakova, Deputy Director of Bio-Chemical Physics Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences

– The activities of information centers for nuclear energy will be certainly useful

Information Center for Nuclear Energy was opened in Voronezh Jan 29 2009. This is the third such center opened in the framework of a special program of Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation with the support of Atomenergoprom OJSC and Energoatom Concern OJSC. Similar centers will shortly be organized in many other regions hosting nuclear power plants and other nuclear facilities. The Center is supposed to contact with schoolchildren, their parents, public organizations, mass media and authorities and to inform them about nuclear energy and nuclear power engineering. It will have a special multimedia program “Voyage into the World of Nuclear Energy,” which will be shown to all visitors. Schoolchildren and their parents will be offered to attend special courses on astronomy, geography, national studies and other subjects.

The activities of information centers for nuclear energy will certainly be useful. They are designed for providing people with reliable information about nuclear power plants and for preventing speculative conclusions based on rumors and allegations. I think that this is a very important project – much more important that we imagine it to be – as lack of information results in either very positive or very negative moods but never adequate to the real situation. It is good that the centers will work with individually with different sections of the population.

The goal of such centers is to enhance people’s confidence in the work of nuclear facilities, which is possible only in case of systematic explanatory and educational work.

I believe that such centers should have been opened many years ago. So, once getting started Atomenergoprom must continue this process.