Nikolay Ponomarev-Stepnoy, Vice President of Kurchatov Institute

– Nuclear power industry can serve as a locomotive for pulling Russia out of its dependence on resources

On July 22 President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev chaired a meeting of the Committee on Modernization and Technological Development of Economy. The meeting took place at the Russian Federal Nuclear Center-All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics (RFNC-VNIIEF). The Committee discussed the five key ways to modernize Russia’s economy: energy efficiency and energy saving and production of new types of fuel; nuclear technologies; space technologies (GLONASS (Global Navigation Satellite System)) and development of land infrastructure; medical technologies (diagnostic equipment and medicines); strategic information technologies (supercomputers and software).

It is very important that a committee of such a high rank is searching for specific ways to modernize our technologies in order to improve our economy. It is significant that the first meeting of the committee took place in the nuclear system and was dedicated to the problems of the nuclear sector.

These problems have been classified into five groups: from medical technologies to hydrogen energy. I have always said that the nuclear power industry can serve as a locomotive for pulling Russia out of its dependence on resources. For quite a long time we heavily depended on our oil and gas pipelines. The crisis was a big blow for us: Russia has lost much more than any other country in the world as oil and gas were our key sources of income. I am still optimistic: the President is doing his best to secure revolutionary technologies. I think that nuclear energy is one of them and it will help us to transit from dependence on resources to a technological breakthrough.

As regards 25% of the world nuclear market, one can’t predict such things. But this is the target we must be oriented to. This is a quite realistic figure. Today, the situation on the global nuclear energy market stipulates more active development in developing countries like China, India and Brazil. Their plans to develop nuclear energy are much bigger than ours. And if we look at their plans and at the capacities of the countries that can offer them such technologies, we will see that we can actually hope for 20%-25% of the market. But we must stop hoping and must do something to make this a reality. First of all, we must start involving young people in our projects. It was not just a coincidence that the President visited VNIIEF’s village for young specialists. We must enter the market with up-to-minute technologies. And for this purpose, we must reform our industry: what we have today is not enough for producing necessary equipment and aspiring for big shares on the global market. Nuclear energy can help us in this matter: its development will stimulate growth in other sectors. But all this must be done with the active involvement of young specialists.