Nuclear Industry in Russia

Russia’s nuclear industry is among the world’s most technologically advanced in terms of reactor designs, nuclear fuel, experience of operating nuclear power plants, NPP personnel qualifications. The companies affiliated with the industry have amassed vast experience while fulfilling ambitious nuclear projects like the construction of the world’s first nuclear power plant (1954) and development of nuclear fuel for it. Russia boasts the world’s best enrichment technologies. Nuclear power stations with pressurized water reactors (PWR) have proved their reliability during a thousand reactor-years of failure-free operation. Today the nuclear industry of Russia is a powerful complex comprising over 250 companies and organizations employing more than 190,000 people. The industry is structured into four sectors, including nuclear fuel cycle complex, nuclear power complex, nuclear weapons complex and R&D complex. After FSUE Atomflot joined the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom, the industry embraced the world’s most powerful fleet of nuclear powered icebreakers.

At present new nuclear power stations are constructed in Russia. They include Novovoronezh NPP 2, Leningrad NPP 2, Baltic NPP, and the world’s first floating nuclear power plant “Academician Lomonosov”. The construction of the fourth power generating unit at Beloyarsk NPP is nearing completion. Russia is also building nuclear power plants abroad, including Kudankulam NPP (India), Bushehr NPP (Iran), Akkuyu NPP (Turkey), Ostrovets NPP (Belarus), and the second phase of Tianwan NPP (China).