— As a member of the Russian Academy of Science, I am an expert in radiation matters, but I am always concerned about opinion of the others, because one can come across some totally polar viewpoints.

On October 20th a session of the Community Council for the issues of nuclear power utilization in the Kostroma Region has been held in the Kostroma Region. The major issue on the agenda was the Central NPP construction in Buyskiy District. It gathered the deputies of all levels, the leaders of public opinion, public organizations and Mass Media in the Kostroma Region, the delegates from the regional and Vologda construction businesses, and Rosatom SK, Energoatom Concern, JSC, Atomenergoproject Research and Design Institute, the Institute for Safe Development of Nuclear Power Industry of the Russian Academy of Science.

Igor Osip’yants, Head of Phenomenology of Radiation Accidents of the Institute for Safe Development of Nuclear Power Industry of the Russian Academy of Science:

The session of the Community Council was an interesting experience for me. As a member of the Russian Academy of Science, I am an expert in radiation matters, but I am always concerned about opinion of the others, because one can come across some totally polar viewpoints. But here I judged the majority of people did realize that the nuclear power plant would be rather better than worse. In fact, we do realize the true significance of willingness to provide an adequate incident response by the authorities, which do happen, but luckily, there were no major incidents after Chernobyl, and will never occur, because the safety level of contemporary plants is much higher than in the past, and it was confirmed by those multiple IAEA missions that have visited the stations with the same power-generating units located in the other countries.

HISTORICAL REFERENCE:

Construction of the Central NPP is suggested at Buyskiy District of the Kostroma Region, 10 km to the northwest of Buy City, on the right bank of Kostroma River.

At the Central NPP construction provisions are made for designing of the power-generating units #1 and #2 with the total capacity of at least 2,340 MWt. The rated capacity per 1 power-generating unit shall be at least 1,170 mWt (e); the service life of a power-generating unit shall make 60 years; power efficiency factor (net) is at least 34.7%; mean average operating ratio at the rated capacity – 0.92; predicted capacity factor for a power-generating unit – 0.90); auxiliary power consumption – under 7.0% of the total output; specific number of industrial and manufacturing employees providing maintenance services -0.43 pers./MWt.