SCGI

Russia atomic company rosatom to triple sales by 2030

By Lyubov Pronina and Yuriy Humber

September 27, 2010

(Bloomberg) -- Rosatom Corp., Russia’s nuclear holding company, plans to at least triple sales to $50 billion by 2030, as China and India order more reactors and fuel and opportunities emerge in the Middle East, said Chief Executive Officer Sergei Kiriyenko.

Rosatom’s reactor-building unit, ZAO Atomstroyexport, will begin work on two more nuclear reactors at China’s Tianwan power plant next year after Russia signed a contract at a “global market price,” Kiriyenko told reporters today in Beijing. The Moscow-based company, which built the first two units at Tianwan, is also in talks to build the nation’s next-generation fast reactors and a nuclear fuel plant, he said.

The push into the world’s second-largest economy, where Rosatom vies with Toshiba Corp.’s Westinghouse Electric Corp. and France’s Areva SA, as well as domestic builders, is in line with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s aim to make Russia the top energy provider. The world’s biggest exporter of oil and natural gas is bidding for nuclear power projects in the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia.

Nuclear-fuel report challenges key assumptions MIT study finds

Uranium supplies will not limit the expansion of nuclear power in the U.S. or around the world for the foreseeable future, according to a major new interdisciplinary study produced under the auspices of the MIT Energy Initiative.

The study challenges conventional assumptions about nuclear energy. It suggests that nuclear power using today’s reactor technology with a once-through fuel cycle can play a significant part in displacing the world’s carbon-emitting fossil-fuel plants, and thus help to reduce the potential for global climate change. But determining the best fuel cycle for the next generation of nuclear power plants will require more research, the report concludes.

The report focuses on what is known as the “nuclear fuel cycle” — a concept that encompasses both the kind of fuel used to power a reactor (currently, most of the world’s reactors run on mined uranium that has been enriched, while a few run on plutonium) and what happens to the fuel after it has been used (either stored on site or disposed of underground — a “once-through” cycle — or reprocessed to yield new reactor fuel).

Putting nuclear energy in the right light for solving our energy crisis

August 31, 2010

Benita Dodd

Support for nuclear energy has increased steadily since Gallup began polling Americans in 1994 on the issue. Then, 57 percent supported using nuclear power to generate electricity. This year, it was 62 percent. Even as support inches forward, however, innovation is at risk of being crushed under the heel of the vocal minority.

Electricity demands are expected to increase 27 percent by 2030 in the Southeast, where bountiful but unpopular fossil fuels generate much of the energy. Georgia’s energy generation, half of which is coal-powered, is the cleanest it has ever been.

Daily updates at Nuclear Town Hall

Read the latest news about nuclear power technology and politics.

1/4th Global Power Can Come from Nuclear by 2050

International Energy Agency

June 16, 2010

Almost one quarter of global electricity could be generated from nuclear power by 2050, making a major contribution to cutting greenhouse gas emissions. This is the central finding of the Nuclear Energy Technology Roadmap, published today by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA). Such an expansion will require nuclear generating capacity to more than triple over the next 40 years, a target the roadmap describes as ambitious but achievable.

Russia atomic company rosatom to triple sales by 2030

Nuclear-fuel report challenges key assumptions MIT study finds

Read more about the MIT report

Putting nuclear energy in the right light for solving our energy crisis

Read more about support for nuclear energy

Daily updates at Nuclear Town Hall

Read the latest news about nuclear power technology and politics.

1/4th Global Power Can Come from Nuclear by 2050

Read more about nuclear power by 2050