Pyotr Kondratenko, deputy head of Department for Safe Development of Power Technologies of Nuclear Safety Institute

– If certain requirements are observed, nuclear power engineering is the safest source of energy

The expert committee on the ecological situation in NPP zones of the Federal Service for Ecological, Technological and Nuclear Supervision (Rostekhandzor) has recognized that in 2008 the nuclear power plants of Russia were ecologically safe. The findings of the committee were publicized during a meeting concerning the ecological activities of the Russian nuclear power plants in 2008 and their tasks for 2009. The key tasks of the ecological services of Energoatom Concern for 2009–2010 are to obtain Rostekhnadzor’s radioactive waste treatment license and to create an efficiency ecological management system complying with ISO 14001 standards.

We believe that, if certain requirements are observed (and in the last years our requirements have become much tougher as compared with the foreign ones), nuclear power engineering is the safest of the economically efficient sources of energy. I can’t remember any serious incident happening in the nuclear industry in the last five years.

I think that the positive resolution of an independent and highly principled supervisory body like Rostekhandzor is sufficient proof that our nuclear power plants are safe for ecology.