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    Russian Nuclear Deals: News

    GarryB
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    Post  GarryB Fri Mar 29, 2024 2:10 am

    But if Russia could price their breeder reactors well they could have over half the African continent and Asia in their back pockets.

    Call me naive but this isn't about Russia trying to control Asia and Africa... this is about selling to them at a fair price the solid reliable energy they need to grow and develop without western control or ownership holding them back.

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    Arrow


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    Post  Arrow Thu Apr 25, 2024 3:07 pm

    What do you think about thorium reactors? Supposedly they produce much less radioactive waste, are more efficient, etc. Is this the future supposedly? Work on this type of reactors is mainly carried out by India and China. There is much more thorium than uranium. I wonder if Russia will also go in this direction.

    "LFTR reactors will dramatically reduce the size and long-term radioactive activity of their waste. For comparison, the fuel of light water reactors consists of over 95% of uranium-238, part of which is transformed through transmutation into plutonium-239, a highly toxic isotope belonging to the transuranium group. As you can see, just one reaction separates almost all of the light water reactor fuel from becoming long-term transuranium waste. The half-life of Pu-239, which has the largest share in transuranic waste from light water reactors, is 24,000 years. Transuranium waste along with Pu-239 is perceived by society as an insoluble problem. In contrast, the LFTR reactor will use a thorium fuel cycle in which thorium is converted to U-233. Because thorium is a lighter element, the formation of transuranium elements takes a longer time, requiring more neutron absorption than in the U-Pu cycle. The U-233 in the LFTR will be 90% fissioned and then the remaining 10% will be 80% fissioned to produce U-235. The percentage of fuel that will be converted to transuranium Neptunium-237 will most likely be only 2%, which is approximately 15 kg per 1 GWe-year[58]. This is a twenty times smaller amount of transuranium elements than that produced by a light water reactor, where their weight is 300 kg per 1 GWe-year. It is important that with such a small amount of transuranium elements being produced, LFTR will be able to perform ongoing recycling and introduce them into the core for final burning. Neptunium-237 returned to the core will absorb a neutron and then undergo beta decay to form Plutonium-238, which is a sought-after fuel for radioisotope thermoelectric generators that power space probes. However, in the case of reactors operating on U-238, full recycling is difficult and expensive due to the presence of a much larger amount of transuranium elements."

    "Thorium is at least 4-5 times more abundant in nature than all of uranium isotopes combined; thorium is fairly evenly spread around Earth with a lot of countries[52] having huge supplies of it; preparation of thorium fuel does not require difficult[51] and expensive enrichment processes; the thorium fuel cycle creates mainly Uranium-233 contaminated with Uranium-232 which makes it harder to use in a normal, pre-assembled nuclear weapon which is stable over long periods of time (unfortunately drawbacks are much lower for immediate use weapons or where final assembly occurs just prior to usage time); elimination of at least the transuranic portion of the nuclear waste problem is possible in MSR and other breeder reactor designs. "
    lancelot
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    Post  lancelot Thu Apr 25, 2024 7:52 pm

    Arrow wrote:What do you think about thorium reactors? Supposedly they produce much less radioactive waste, are more efficient, etc. Is this the future supposedly? Work on this type of reactors is mainly carried out by India and China. There is much more thorium than uranium. I wonder if Russia will also go in this direction.
    There is enough easily minable uranium to last the world for at least a century. Beyond that Russia is working on fast reactors. Because fast reactors burn the uranium better they would enable existing uranium fuel supplies to last for like 2500 years. Russia is working on two fast reactor technologies: sodium reactors, lead reactors.

    https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Middle-tier-of-containment-installed-for-Brest-OD
    https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/BN-600-reactor-at-Beloyarsk-aims-to-get-new-life-e

    Thorium is another possible feedstock for making uranium fuel. But because thorium isn't fissile, just fertile, you would need to irradiate it with neutrons to create uranium before it can be used in a nuclear reactor. This is highly complicated but would also further increase the available fuel supply.

    India is probably the country most interested in thorium reactors because they don't have significant uranium deposits but have lots of thorium.

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    kvs
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    Post  kvs Thu Apr 25, 2024 10:54 pm

    The fast neutron closed cycle gets around 50 time more energy out of Uranium than the conventional reactor approach.   Thorium can
    be converted to Uranium-233 inside fast neutron reactors in a practical way.   The infrastructure for this is in place with a closed fuel cycle.  
    Fuel reprocessing is something the west forgot to the point that America couldn't even reprocess its nuclear warhead fission cores.

    The fixation on nuclear weapons from fast neutron reactors in the west is demented. State actors can organize nuclear weapons production
    as they please. So the world is supposed to sit there and not use this amazing reactor technology because "terrorists" can supposedly
    strip reactors and reprocess the fuel into dirty bombs and other shit in some warehouse. Yeah, right.

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    GarryB
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    Post  GarryB Fri Apr 26, 2024 2:23 am

    What do you think about thorium reactors? Supposedly they produce much less radioactive waste, are more efficient, etc. Is this the future supposedly? Work on this type of reactors is mainly carried out by India and China. There is much more thorium than uranium. I wonder if Russia will also go in this direction.

    Fast breeder reactors essentially turn Uranium into a fully recyclable material where the radioactive waste is consumed in the normal processes of generating energy and used uranium rods refuelled in the process of storing them near the reactor pile generating power from enriched fuel rods.

    Being a closed cycle with no excess radioactive waste to deal with why would Russia spend money and time creating a new processing system with a different material?
    lyle6
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    Post  lyle6 Fri Apr 26, 2024 3:47 am

    GarryB wrote:
    Call me naive but this isn't about Russia trying to control Asia and Africa... this is about selling to them at a fair price the solid reliable energy they need to grow and develop without western control or ownership holding them back.
    On a good day most "nations" of the third world can't handle basic sanitation and yet you're fine with giving them the keys to nuclear energy...

    There are very good internal reasons why these shitholes are backward. You don't need to attribute everything to western imperialism - we have our agencies too.

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    JohninMK
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    Post  JohninMK Mon Jun 17, 2024 8:39 am

    The West will not be able to do without Uranium from Russia. 


    This applies not only to the United States, but also to Europe, which depends on Russian fuel and services needed to maintain nuclear power plants. Russia is a leading nuclear power, and Rosatom is the world's number one supplier, stated the head of the IAEA Rafael Grossi 
    @DD_Geopolitics

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    lancelot
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    Post  lancelot Mon Jun 17, 2024 9:27 am

    Nuclear is just 8% of US power consumption. A lot of the US allies would experience difficulties however.
    France has budgeted expansion of its enrichment facilities. Could be operational by decade's end.
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    Post  kvs Mon Jun 17, 2024 10:30 am

    If US clowns are going to push their global warming scam, they will have to generate much more of their energy from non-fossil sources.

    Nuclear power is the best option for reducing global CO2 emissions bar none. Waiting decades for fusion power which may never arrive is retarded.
    Wind and solar are gimmicks for Europe and northern latitudes and the lifecycle of the generation equipment releases vast amounts of CO2. Something
    not admitted by the "clean" energy clowns. Right now there is a problem with disposal of spent wind turbines. No solar panel and wind turbine lasts
    60 years. El Cheapo panels don't even last 10 years.






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    JohninMK
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    Post  JohninMK Mon Jun 17, 2024 11:28 am

    kvs wrote:If US clowns are going to push their global warming scam, they will have to generate much more of their energy from non-fossil sources.

    Nuclear power is the best option for reducing global CO2 emissions bar none.   Waiting decades for fusion power which may never arrive is retarded.
    Wind and solar are gimmicks for Europe and northern latitudes and the lifecycle of the generation equipment releases vast amounts of CO2.   Something
    not admitted by the "clean" energy clowns.   Right now there is a problem with disposal of spent wind turbines.   No solar panel and wind turbine lasts
    60 years.   El Cheapo panels don't even last 10 years.

    The life of most turbine blades is only around 15 years, way shorter than panel life, with many out at sea Shocked

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    Kiko
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    Post  Kiko Tue Aug 13, 2024 4:22 pm

    India eyeing $1.2bn nuclear deal with Russia – report, 08.13.2024.

    Moscow is helping build the Kudankulam NPP in southern India, set to be the largest atomic power plant in the country.

    New Delhi is working out a deal with Moscow for the supply of nuclear fuel and core components for the upcoming units of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, the Times of India reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed sources. The deal is estimated at 105 billion rupees ($1.2 billion), according to the newspaper.

    The Kudankulam NPP, which is being built with Russia’s assistance, currently has two operational units, each with a capacity of 1,000 MW, and is the main power provider for the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu and other states.

    The plant’s first two units entered service in 2013 and 2016. Units 3 and 4 are currently under construction. Agreements for the final two units, 5 and 6, were signed last December when Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar visited Moscow. Once completed, the plant will be the largest nuclear power plant in India with a capacity of 6,000 MW.

    According to the deal for nuclear fuel supplies, TVEL, the fuel company of Russia’s state-run Rosatom, will be supplying fuel, control rods, and a fuel assembly inspection tool for units 3 and 4 of the plant from 2025 to 2033.

    India is also considering forming a joint venture with Rosatom for manufacturing nuclear fuel in the country to boost its nuclear capability.

    The two countries have been working together in the nuclear industry for several decades. A joint statement issued by Moscow and New Delhi during the visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Russian capital in July expressed expanding cooperation with regard to nuclear energy.

    Ahead of Modi’s visit to Moscow, Bloomberg reported, citing senior officials, that India could strike a major deal that would involve Russia providing uranium on a long-term basis.

    While Indian leader was in Moscow, Rosatom announced that the two countries are in talks to build six new Russian-designed high-capacity nuclear power units at a site in India yet to be determined.

    Russia is also offering India new technology – small modular reactors with a generating capacity of around 100-200MW. Rosatom CEO Aleksey Likhachev presented the technology to Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin during their visit to the Atom Pavilion in Moscow. According to Likhachev, Russia’s offer for India includes a high level of localization and the possibility of transferring of the construction part of the project to New Delhi.

    At present, India’s nuclear generating capacity is around 7.5GW, and New Delhi is planning to increase it by 70% in the next five years – to 13GW by 2029.

    https://www.rt.com/india/602578-india-eyeing-12bn-nuclear-deal-russia/

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    lancelot
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    Post  lancelot Tue Aug 13, 2024 5:00 pm

    They started building units 5-6 a long time ago in 2021.
    https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Components-ready-for-fifth-Kudankulam-unit

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    Post  mnztr Mon Aug 19, 2024 10:45 pm

    JohninMK wrote:The West will not be able to do without Uranium from Russia. 


    This applies not only to the United States, but also to Europe, which depends on Russian fuel and services needed to maintain nuclear power plants. Russia is a leading nuclear power, and Rosatom is the world's number one supplier, stated the head of the IAEA Rafael Grossi 
    @DD_Geopolitics

    they can, but not in the near term. But Russia has continued to develop nuclear tech while the west stopped, and is now restarting,. There are some very interesting developments. Of course the most interesting recent tech is Chinas small fusion reactor, 200mw!!! they claim they will have a production model in 2027!!!

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    Post  xeno Mon Aug 19, 2024 11:32 pm

    Don’t believe that Chinese horseshit. There is no such thing as alien technology in China. The real strength of China is quantity. which is unmatchable in the world at the moment.

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    kvs
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    Post  kvs Tue Aug 20, 2024 6:59 am

    A fusion reactor in 2027? What a load of bollox.

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    Post  Kiko Tue Aug 20, 2024 3:48 pm

    Russia has decided to build 11 new nuclear power plants by 2042, by Alexey Degtyarev for VZGLYAD. 08.20.2024.

    By 2042, it is planned to build about 11 new nuclear power plants; such a proposal is contained in the general plan for the placement of electric power facilities.

    New small and large nuclear power plants are planned to be built in the Rostov, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, and Tomsk regions, TASS reports with reference to the document.

    They will also be built in Primorsky, Krasnoyarsk and Khabarovsk Krais, in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug and Yakutia.

    https://vz.ru/news/2024/8/20/1283022.html

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    lancelot
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    Post  lancelot Tue Aug 20, 2024 5:34 pm

    The Russian government keeps claiming they want nuclear power to be 25% of all generation by 2040 or something. So yeah they need to build more nuclear power stations. Not just to replace the ones which will expire after the end of their lifetime but build new ones.

    The major difference with this plan and the previous ones is how they claim they will build nuclear power plants in the Far East.
    https://tass.com/economy/1831693

    The sites they claim are clearly incomplete though. The Smolensk, Novovoronezh, and Kola sites which need to be built to replace reactors which will expire aren't mentioned at all. They could also build nuclear power plants in Tatarstan and around Nizhny Novgorod for example. Those sites used to be part of the nuclear construction plan in Soviet times until the power plants were cancelled with the end of the Soviet Union. Tatarstan in particular since switched to gas fired power plants using Western gas turbines which now neither have proper parts support nor maintenance. Those regions have lots of population and industry and could use the extra power.

    The construction in Rostov is also a new claim but this makes sense since it is one of the regions with the most population growth in Russia.

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    GarryB
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    Post  GarryB Tue Aug 20, 2024 7:42 pm

    Tatarstan in particular since switched to gas fired power plants using Western gas turbines which now neither have proper parts support nor maintenance. Those regions have lots of population and industry and could use the extra power.

    They have plenty of gas to run their own powerstations, and they are developing more powerful turbines of their own too.

    The more new gas fired power stations they build the less excess gas will be available if say the west needs more...

    Last time I looked most US energy is still generated by coal fired power stations... take away nuclear power and the burden is likely to shift to more coal fired stations or perhaps gas powered stations which means less gas for export to Europe...

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    lancelot
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    Post  lancelot Tue Aug 20, 2024 8:53 pm

    GarryB wrote:They have plenty of gas to run their own powerstations, and they are developing more powerful turbines of their own too.

    The more new gas fired power stations they build the less excess gas will be available if say the west needs more...

    Last time I looked most US energy is still generated by coal fired power stations... take away nuclear power and the burden is likely to shift to more coal fired stations or perhaps gas powered stations which means less gas for export to Europe...
    Most US electricity is generated with natural gas. This started in the 1990s when they started replacing fuel oil power stations with natural gas ones as oil prices rose.

    Tatarstan has huge energy requirements and right now the gas generator producing industry in Russia is pretty much overburdened with work. Steam turbines have low efficiency. Existing production is also pretty much tapped out. Next generation large gas turbines like the ones by Power Machines and UEC Saturn right now have extremely low production rates and unknown (likely low) reliability. Unless some nuclear power plants are built there might be energy shortages medium term.

    Rostov and Southern Russia in particular already have like a 700 MW energy shortfall. This is due to people moving there near Sochi and other places over the past decade, and the new regions in Ukraine.

    Some people in the nuclear industry are already talking about increasing the lifetime of the RBMK nuclear reactors another 5 years. Because the projects to replace these units with VVER reactors at places like Smolensk and Leningrad is delayed. Even the Kursk II VVER nuclear power plant, of which the first unit was supposed to come online this year, might be delayed because of them taking construction crew out of the site after the Ukrainian invasion of Kursk.

    RBMK reactors like the ones at Kursk (2 units), Smolensk (3 units), Leningrad (2 units) were not built with a thick concrete containment dome like modern VVER reactors. This means they will be much more vulnerable to attack by drones carrying explosives. VVER units built after 9/11 are designed to withstand airplane crashes without damaging the reactor core. The whole industry worldwide moved to add that capacity to reactor designs. Modern LWR reactors have better defenses in depth to protect against terrorist attacks.

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    lancelot
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    Post  lancelot Tue Aug 20, 2024 11:16 pm

    The West is trying to put a kibosh on Russia's nuclear power plant exports.

    Inside The Ambitious Plan To Compete With Russia On Nuclear Energy Again
    Alexander C. Kaufman
    August 17, 2024

    Nuclear plants are cheap to operate, last decades longer than other power sources, and generate unrivaled volumes of zero-carbon electricity rain or shine on relatively tiny slivers of land. Yet despite growing demand, few investors are willing to take a risk on new atomic energy stations as they’re expensive and difficult to build. The United States hasn’t built more than two from scratch in decades, and similar projects in Europe have gone billions of dollars over budget and taken years to complete.

    Of the nearly five dozen reactors under construction worldwide, the majority are funded by the Chinese or Russian governments, with the Kremlin financing virtually every debut project underway in countries like Bangladesh, Egypt and Turkey. Unlike buying Russian gas or Chinese-made solar panels, a nuclear power station is not a one-off purchase. Given the maintenance and fuel these plants require, the relationships forged between the buyer and the authoritarian exporter are expected to last as long as a century between construction, a typical lifetime of operation and final decommissioning.

    A new campaign launched this week aims to rally support behind a potential alternative, HuffPost has learned: a global bank backed by the world’s biggest nuclear-powered democracies and dedicated to building nuclear power plants around the world.

    The idea for the International Bank for Nuclear Infrastructure has been circulating for a few years. But a global team of 15 lawyers, financiers and regulatory experts officially incorporated a new Washington, D.C.-headquartered nonprofit in hopes of persuading Congress to put up to $7 billion toward getting the new lender off the ground. It’s the first of what the organization envisions as a globe-spanning network of nonprofits promoting IBNI.

    With a goal of raising an initial $25 billion to start the bank, IBNI would ― at least for now ― cut out Russia and China in favor of establishing a new multilateral institution akin to the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund with atomic allies such as Canada, France, the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates. IBNI could then provide financing for projects in would-be newcomer nations like Ghana, Indonesia or the Philippines, reducing the risk for other lenders and lowering the cost of choosing American, European or South Korean technology over cheaper Russian exports.

    “It will be a playing field leveler in the international competition for nuclear technology,” said Daniel Dean, the Vienna-based American investment banker who serves as the new nonprofit’s chief executive. “This bank will enable these countries and stakeholders to select technology independent of which country is providing a full financing package.”

    Dean stressed that IBNI is “geopolitically neutral,” and said that while present global tensions make forming a new group with Russia and China untenable, the organization would not be fundamentally designed to exclude anyone.

    While cost estimates vary, the price of Russian reactors is typically less than half of what nuclear plants built by Americans or Europeans cost, and about 40% cheaper than those constructed by South Korea, currently the leading atomic exporter in the democratic world.

    China, which is building more reactors at home than any other country, is developing novel reactor designs and is widely expected to begin exporting its technology in the next decade. In the meantime, Russia is the main game in town. The state-owned Rosatom offers a one-stop-shop for technology, construction, maintenance, fuel and financing, making Moscow the vendor of choice for most countries building their first nuclear power stations.

    The U.S., by contrast, struggled until earlier this year to complete the only two new American reactors started this century, and ― with a notable exception ― depends on a privatized network of companies to build, run, fuel and finance its own atomic fleet.

    In practice, that model has yielded limited progress in recent years. Centrus Energy, the U.S. uranium enricher spun out from federal government ownership in the late 1990s, last year started fabricating a special type of nuclear fuel over which Russia has a monopoly, but still can’t produce enough to keep the American fleet going and needed a special exemption to continue importing Russian fuel. Terra Power, the Bill Gates-backed developer of next-generation reactors, broke ground just last month on what could be the first of a new kind of technology anywhere in the democratic world, the likes of which China not only completed but hooked up to its grid last December.

    The federally owned Export-Import Bank of the U.S. has put up $3 billion to fund construction of Poland’s first nuclear power plant with American reactors, a project Warsaw has pitched as a strategy to cement its alliance with Washington. Even there, however, Poland wanted U.S. companies to buy equity stakes in the station to help make the project look less risky — a demand at which American firms have so far balked.

    “The traditional financing mechanisms are not even close to ready to help support nuclear,” said Todd Moss, a former assistant U.S. Secretary of State who now runs the think tank Energy for Growth Hub, which researches ways to build climate-resilient energy systems in developing countries. “Something like IBNI is an obvious solution to fill that financing gap.”

    The picture hasn’t been much rosier in Europe, where flagship French and British plans for new reactors at home and elsewhere on the continent have cost billions more than initially planned and taken years longer. South Korea, which generates much of its electricity from atomic fission, has fared better, successfully building the United Arab Emirates’ first nuclear plant last year and winning a $17 billion contract last month to construct a new plant in Czechia. But the previous government in Seoul tried to destroy the domestic nuclear industry, and a country the size of South Korea can only do so much overseas to meet the goal the Biden administration set at last year’s United Nations climate summit to triple global atomic energy output by 2050.

    Other international lenders could help close the financing gap on nuclear reactors. The World Bank, for example, has refused to fund nuclear projects since a single investment in Italy’s now-defunct atomic sector in 1959. Pressure is now mounting on the World Bank to lift its ban on nuclear plants. In February, the U.S. House of Representatives proposed legislation earlier this year to push the World Bank and other regional lenders to commit as much as $100 billion in annual financing for nuclear projects.

    Of the 189 countries that act as shareholders in the World Bank, just eight openly oppose nuclear power ― including Germany, Austria and Luxembourg ― with another 100 either operating reactors or publicly supporting the technology.

    “It’s a tyranny of the anti-nuclear minority,” Moss said. “The World Bank is one of the most important financiers of infrastructure, but it’s probably the most important adviser to their borrowing countries on a whole set of infrastructure-planning issues.”

    Right now, countries like the Philippines or Ghana are making decisions about their future energy mix, weighing whether nuclear makes sense, and what types of nuclear facilities make sense and where, he said.

    “The World Bank is completely absent from those conversations, where the World Bank is involved in every nook and cranny of what these governments are doing,” Moss said. “That strikes me as willful ignorance. It’s not doing the World Bank or their borrowing clients any good by acting ignorant.”

    As a first step, he said, the World Bank should hire internal experts to help consult its borrowers on nuclear power.

    That may do little to dampen demand for another lender like IBNI.

    The trouble is that some Western lending institutions, including the World Bank, are designed to fund projects primarily in developing countries, meaning that nuclear projects in North America, Europe or East Asia might not qualify for financing.

    “Even if the World Bank changes its policy tomorrow, you’re going to be competing against a lot of other projects that are easier to finance,” said Elina Teplinsky, an attorney at the Washington, D.C.-based law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman who handles international nuclear deals and is working on the side to launch IBNI. “If you have a choice between financing wind and solar or financing nuclear, even if your politics are for financing nuclear, you’re going to go with financing new wind and solar.”

    By targeting IBNI specifically at nuclear projects, the bank would be prepared to deal with issues and timelines specific to fission energy.

    “IBNI’s entire focus would be to scale nuclear, so it would be able to come in upfront and would be able to move on lots of different projects,” Teplinsky said, “with the idea that the entire purpose of this financing is to scale hundreds of gigawatts of nuclear power instead of looking at projects just on a case by case basis.”

    IBNI would also help set international financing standards for rating the value of nuclear investments, Dean said, helping to open more funding from so-called ESG investors concerned over the environmental and social impact of dealmaking.

    If IBNI already existed, convincing Congress to give it more money might not be such a tall task. But critics of the proposal say it’s hard enough to get political support for funding entirely U.S.-owned institutions like the Ex-Im Bank that are dedicated to financing projects for American exports overseas. For much of the past decade, conservative think tanks and pundits have argued in favor of defunding the Ex-Im Bank entirely, and experts expect the fight to begin anew next year when Congress begins debating reauthorizing the bank before its charter runs out at the end of 2026.

    Putting up more funding for a new institution that might end up financing French or South Korean technology on projects where a U.S. company loses the bid would be a tough sell in Washington, according to a high-ranking source involved in reauthorizing the Ex-Im Bank who requested anonymity to speak candidly on a sensitive topic. The source worried IBNI might be an “unnecessary distraction” from more realistic goals, like reforming the World Bank.

    But Dean said his meetings with officials from the Ex-Im Bank, the U.S. Treasury and Congress have so far been positive, and noted the support for nuclear energy across the American political spectrum. Discussions with lawmakers and counterpart agencies in Canada, Europe and Asia went similarly well, he said.

    The next step, he said, will be promoting IBNI in November at the back-to-back United Nations climate summit in Azerbaijan and the G20 conference in Brazil.

    “The simple answer is that IBNI is the best use of every dollar of public money that can be devoted to scaling nuclear,” he said. “We don’t want to compete with what the U.S. Ex-Im Bank is doing, what the Canadians are doing, what the French are doing ... At the end of the day, for every dollar of tax money that’s provided by these countries, IBNI will provide the most bang for the buck.”

    https://www.aol.com/inside-ambitious-plan-compete-russia-120012474.html
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    Arrow


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    Post  Arrow Wed Aug 21, 2024 3:32 am

    ome people in the nuclear industry are already talking about increasing the lifetime of the RBMK nuclear reactors another 5 years. Because the projects to replace these units with VVER reactors at places like Smolensk and Leningrad is delayed. Even the Kursk II VVER nuclear power plant, of which the first unit was supposed to come online this year, might be delayed because of them taking construction crew out of the site after the Ukrainian invasion of Kursk. RBMK reactors like the ones at Kursk (2 units), Smolensk (3 units), Leningrad (2 units) were not built with a thick concrete containment dome like modern VVER reactors. This means they will be much more vulnerable to attack by drones carrying explosives. VVER units built after 9/11 are designed to withstand airplane crashes without damaging the reactor core. The whole industry worldwide moved to add that capacity to reactor designs. Modern LWR reactors have better defenses in depth to protect against terrorist attacks. wrote:

    Why are there such delays in the construction of the NPP in the country that builds the most reactors in the world? It is currently the most developed nuclear country in the world. They have the money and the technology. RBMK should be replaced as soon as possible. Russia should have a fairly large share of nuclear power in energy production.
    lancelot
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    Post  lancelot Wed Aug 21, 2024 5:41 am

    Arrow wrote:Why are there such delays in the construction of the NPP in the country that builds the most reactors in the world? It is currently the most developed nuclear country in the world. They have the money and the technology. RBMK should be replaced as soon as possible. Russia should have a fairly large share of nuclear power in energy production.
    Beats me. They are trying to milk the reactors for all they can to get the most out of what are essentially depreciated resources. It would make sense if it wasn't a possible security hazard, when you have Ukraine flying remotely controlled airplanes with explosives into things.

    As it is Kursk NPP with its two RBMK units is already within artillery range from their territory. With GMLRS or ATACMS they can hit the power plant even from inside Ukraine proper. The Smolensk and Novovonezh NPPs are also relatively close to Ukraine. The Smolensk NPP is another RBMK power plant but with three units.
    kvs
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    Post  kvs Wed Aug 21, 2024 8:35 am

    Since reactors have 60+ year life spans, the question as to which ones to build is a serious one. All of these delays and the lunatic conspiracy theories about them are
    likely due to the plan to deploy BM-1200 reactors instead of the VVER variants. There would be no point developing the BM-1200 if VVER units were chosen to be built.
    The rector turnover is just too slow.

    lancelot
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    Post  lancelot Wed Aug 21, 2024 8:43 am

    kvs wrote:Since reactors have 60+ year life spans, the question as to which ones to build is a serious one.    All of these delays and the lunatic conspiracy theories about them are
    likely due to the plan to deploy BM-1200 reactors instead of the VVER variants.    There would be no point developing the BM-1200 if VVER units were chosen to be built.
    The rector turnover is just too slow.
    You mean the BN-1200M? Still being designed. Unknown how well it will work in terms of reliability and economy. And the ones which are supposed to be built will be located in the middle of the country behind the Urals.

    The plan is to have mostly VVER reactors with a certain smaller number of fast reactors like the BN series operating on MOX fuel.

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    GarryB
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    Post  GarryB Thu Aug 22, 2024 2:27 am

    The West is trying to put a kibosh on Russia's nuclear power plant exports.

    The west is realising that Rosatom gets jobs because it offers a complete service from funding and loans to planning and building the plants, to running the plants and teaching locals how to run them too and to supply fuel and to take away any waste and spent fuel for reuse or storage, and then when the time comes to dismantle and retire the power plant.

    Even just the first part of organising funding is a problem for most countries so this appears to be a western solution to that problem... but really it is just rich western banks getting richer and gaining levers to control third world countries at the UN and in other international forums... much like the world bank and IMF fund does.

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