Nuclear, key in global energy mix

The First Deputy Director General of the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation, Rosatom, Mr Kirill Komarov, has said nuclear has a key role to play in the generation of power globally.

He said although a lot of countries had not embraced the idea, nuclear power plants could guarantee the supply of electricity for many countries that were faced with energy crisis.

Speaking on Rosatom’s world position and business strategy at the just-ended 2017 ATOMEXPO forum which focused on the sustainable use of nuclear technologies, Mr Komarov said nuclear had the potential to produce about 25 per cent of power required globally even during peak demand.

“Although it sometimes falls out of context, nuclear has the chance to help reach the power supply objective globally. Nuclear energy has a place in the global energy mix,” he said.

The use of nuclear for power generation is fast gaining roots globally, and for countries struggling to meet their power demands, nuclear energy is the next big thing to consider.

It has become imperative for African countries to develop a viable energy mix that will guarantee its energy security to power its industrialisation agenda.
Power generation from nuclear has, therefore, come in handy as one of the sources to help bridge the deficit in developing countries.

Future investments

Mr Komarov said the company would continue to invest across the globe, and would seek to build about 34 nuclear power plants in the near future.
Currently, Russia operates more than 20 per cent of all the running research reactors in the world.

Altogether, Rosatom has built more than 120 research reactors, including 20 research reactors in foreign countries such as China, Vietnam, Egypt, Hungary, Germany, the Czech Republic among others.

Rosatom, he explained, offered cutting-edge eco-friendly, safe, reliable and cheap method of producing base load power, adding that nuclear technologies played significant role in medicine, irradiation and desalination.

ATOMEXPO 2017

The 2017 edition of ATOMEXPO 2017, which was on the theme: “Nuclear technologies: Safety, ecology, stability,” ended on June 21 in Moscow, the capital city of Russia.

Several plenary sessions were held and participants agreed that nuclear had a place in the future carbon-free energy production mix. They agreed that the share of nuclear in the world’s energy mix would grow: NPPs have all chances to become a reliable source of baseline generation and, in this capacity, intrinsic part of carbon-free energy.

It was noted that to make a stable and safe energy mix today, countries needed to combine different clean generation sources. Other plenary participants agreed that in the foreseeable future there could not be completion between nuclear power and power engineering based on renewables, that is wind, solar radiation and water flow. — GB