Rosatom, the Russian nuclear champion, obtained one of the last permits it needed to build a mini-reactor (known as "SMR") in Yakutia, in northeastern Siberia, the group announced on Monday.
The Russian nuclear safety authority has given a license for the construction of a 50 megawatt (MW) SMR, the equivalent of a modest hydroelectric dam, modeled on the one built for icebreakers.
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"The construction of the SMR nuclear power plant should begin in 2024
", welcomes Rosatom, for commissioning scheduled for 2028. Civilian nuclear industrialists in developed countries, as well as a number of American start-ups, have embarked on a race to develop an SMR.
In this context, Russia has taken a few steps ahead of France.
EDF, TechnicAtome and CEA have just launched initial studies for the development, by the end of the decade, of a small modular reactor, called Nuward, with a capacity of 300 to 400 MW.
800 jobs
The Rosatom mini-reactor, with a lifespan of sixty years, is to be built in a very remote area of a region itself isolated, the Ust-Yansky district, which borders the Arctic Ocean.
The Russian nuclear giant argues that this small power plant will create 800 jobs in this region which lives on its reindeer herds and mines.
However, explains a Rosatom executive,
“the Kioutchous gold mine (in Yakutia) is the largest untapped mine in Russia.
It is indeed impossible to transport enough diesel there (to supply generators).
The only possibility is therefore to build a small nuclear power plant. "
Like the Siberian project, Rosatom is targeting areas far from electricity grids with its SMR.