Konstantin Kosourov, acting deputy director of Nuclear Reactor Institute

– Our competitiveness on the Chinese market is high

During their meeting in London President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev and President of China Hu Jintao discussed ways to intensify bilateral cooperation in trade, economy, oil, energy, including nuclear energy.

China’s wish is natural: the Chinese have very little organic fuel for meeting their huge demand for energy. They need different sources of energy but, if you look at their map, you will see that 30% of their territory is deserts, 30% — mountains and only 30% is good for living. The population density there is very high. Consequently, they need lots of energy.

I can’t say that China does not have own nuclear history and experience. In their time the Chinese produced reactors by the technology of Westinghouse Electric and even sold them to a third country, as far as I remember, Pakistan. That is, China is a technologically experienced country.

But not as experienced as Russia or the United States are. It is not an easy job to master new technologies and to build new plants. It is much easier to buy finished products.

Our competitiveness on the Chinese market is high. The site of Tianwan NPP has room for seven-eight reactors. We have built two ones and are negotiating for building two more. At first, the Chinese wanted to announce a tender but then decided that all units had to be identical lest they might need to retrain personnel. The first two units have been built by Russia. So, the next reactors will also be built by us.