First small and medium sized reactors might be deployed by 2020

First plants with small and medium nuclear power reactors (up to 500-600MW) may be deployed by 2020, Director General of ZAO Rusatom Overseas Dzhomart Aliyev said at the round table held during ATOMEXPO 2013 in St. Petersburg, BelTA learned.

According to Dzhomart Aliyev, Rosatom views the market of small and medium nuclear power reactors as promising.

The symposium "Topical issues of international nuclear law: the international legal framework of nuclear power in the 21st century” was held as part of the international forum ATOMEXPO 2013. The participants discussed the latest developments in the field of nuclear law, including in the field of nuclear safety, emergency preparedness and response, and also civil liability for nuclear damage. There was an exchange of views on the development of the legal conditions for the operation of the nuclear industry from the point of view of safety and economic efficiency.

The symposium was attended by representatives of the IAEA, the United States Department of Energy, the Institute for Safe Development of Nuclear Power Industry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the National Research Nuclear University (MEPhI), and the National Operator for Radioactive Waste Management, National Research Center “Kurchatov Institute”.

The challenges of the dynamic development of the Russian nuclear industry in conjunction with the integration processes which it is part of necessitates a new systematic approach to improving the legal conditions for activities in nuclear energy, said Igor Linge, Deputy Director of the Institute for Safe Development of Nuclear Power Industry of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In his view, this approach must combine the general harmonization of the nuclear laws, eliminating the legislative loopholes with the constant effort to preserve all the necessary requirements to security and to improve related laws - compensation for the damage to the person’s health and damage to the environment.