Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of the Federal Agency for Nuclear Power, told RIA Novosti that Russia was planning to build 42-58 nuclear power units for its own needs by 2030 and 40-50 units abroad in the next 30 years.
Russia currently has 10 operational nuclear power plants with 31 reactors, but Kiriyenko said Russia would need another 300 gigawatts from new plants to cover a projected energy deficit in the next 30 years.
"Energy consumption in Russia had already grown by 5.5% instead of the planned 2% this year," he said. "There is no evidence to suggest this figure will fall."
Moscow's mayor, Yury Luzhkov, warned Tuesday the capital's energy deficit this winter could reach 20%, sparking concerns that some businesses would have to shut down for days in a repetition of last year's problems during a spell of Arctic weather.
No alternative
With several European countries conducting a review of nuclear power, Kiriyenko, who had a brief stint as prime minister under President Boris Yeltsin, said there was no alternative to nuclear power in the long term.
But he said until the domestic price natural gas exceeded $80 per 1,000 cubic meters, double the current level, nuclear energy would remain uncompetitive.
The nuclear chief is on a four-day trip to London, where he will meet with senior officials from the British government. And he said under a major program on the construction of nuclear power plants, Russia was talking to international concerns on how to develop nuclear engineering.
"We are in talks with the world's leading companies on establishing in Russia a joint venture to produce nuclear engineering products," he said.
Kiriyenko said his agency and Gazprombank, a subsidiary of energy giant Gazprom, had established a joint venture to purchase assets in this sphere.
Enrichment center
Kiriyenko also said he would discuss next week the construction of uranium enrichment center in Russia with Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the international Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog. When the idea was first floated at the start of the year, it was widely seen as a way to defuse the crisis around the Islamic Republic's atomic ambitions.
Kiriyenko said foreign experts should have free access to the center, which should be controlled by the IAEA.
"We believe we will choose a site for the center and resolve all legal and organizational issues by the end of the year," he said without mentioning where the center might be located.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the initiative to set up international centers offering nuclear fuel services at a Eurasian Economic Community summit in St. Petersburg in January at the height of the crisis around Iran's nuclear program.
"We need to create a prototype of such global infrastructure that would enable all concerned parties to have equal access to nuclear energy," Putin said. "I would like to emphasize that nonproliferation requirements have to be reliably observed in the process."
The president said the IAEA should oversee the centers.
"A system of IAEA-controlled international centers offering nuclear fuel services, including enrichment, without discrimination, should become a key element of the suggested infrastructure," he said then.
