Stanislav Mitrakhovich, senior expert of National Energy Security Foundation

– Nuclear energy is a very promising direction

The share of nuclear power plants in total energy production in Russia must be increased to 25%-30% despite the financial crisis, Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin said during a conference on nuclear energy at Kalinin Nuclear Power Plant in Tver region. He said that under the crisis this task needs special attention. Putin also granted Rosatom’s request for additional capitalization worth 50bln RUR.

Russia, just like the whole world, is experiencing nuclear renaissance. We can’t deny this fact and we must develop nuclear energy irrespective of the crisis. Besides, our nuclear power engineers have long proved that they have serious experience and sufficient capacities for development. We see that the head of Rosatom Sergey Kiriyenko is actively working on different projects and is concluding contracts with Siemens and other partners. We need to develop this sector if we want to avoid energy problems and if we want to multiply our scientific-technical capacities. Otherwise, we will lose all advanced technologies we inherited from the Soviet Union. Nuclear energy is a very promising direction. Russia has all capacities for effectively cooperating with foreign colleagues from Germany and for seriously competing with French Areva and American Westinghouse. I am optimistic of our prospects on this market.

We cannot avoid sequestration of the investment program in the energy sector but this concerns not only nuclear industry but all power companies. The question is what we will do next. The main thing is that we must not allow this reduction to lead to an investment pause. We must try to avoid such problems.

The additional 50bln RUR from the budget is a better investment than the support of inefficient companies. Nuclear power engineering and machine building are the sectors that can work at profit and have good future.