Nikolay Kuzelev, Director General of VNIITFA, nuclear expert of State Duma

– In the last years nuclear power has declared itself to be one of the most competitive and safety types of energy

The IAEA has released the latest update of its annual projections for the future of nuclear power, and both its low and high projections for 2030 are higher than they were last year. The low projection foresees an installed global nuclear power capacity of about 510 gigawatts (GW(e)) in 2030, a 40% increase over the 370 GW(e) currently installed in 2009. The high projection foresees 810 GW(e), well more than a doubling. These revised projections for 2030 are 8% higher than last year?s projections.

The upward shift in the projections is greatest for the Far East, a region that includes China, Japan and the Republic of Korea. Modest downward shifts in the projections were made for North America and for Southeast Asia and the Pacific. For all other regions there is a generally modest upward shift. The one exception is a higher upward shift in the high projection for the Middle East and South Asia, which includes India and Pakistan. There the high projection for 2030 shifted upward by 15 GW(e).

All studies still project persistent energy demand growth in the medium and long term.

Meanwhile, Euronews reports that Germany, which who earlier was going to shut down its nuclear power plants, has now announced a plan to extend the service of its 17 operating reactors and to build reactors of general III.

I have just come from a European nuclear symposium in London, where all countries spoke in support of nuclear energy. They said that nuclear energy must be actively developed despite the crisis. Of course, there was some controversy as to what type of reactor to use but everybody was unanimous that nuclear energy is our future.

Now that we are facing a crisis, we need cheaper energy. The more actively we build nuclear reactors in the future, the cheaper our energy will be. One more general concern is the extension of the service lives of the existing nuclear power plants.

In the last years nuclear power has declared itself to be one of the most competitive and safety types of energy. We must enlarge both internal and external relations and constantly enhance the efficiency and reduce the cost of electric power production. After all, all this is done for people, customers, so they can pay less for energy.

It is important to ensure that now under the crisis we spend our funds most effectively and keep the safety of the existing and constructed reactors as high as possible.

CO2 emissions are an acute problem for the moment and it is obvious that nuclear energy can help to solve it. Besides, we can no longer afford burning oil and gas on a large scale – our natural resources are growing scarce and we must switch to renewable energy sources.