Ukraine plans to sign an agreement to construct new nuclear power reactors by the end of this year, Ukrainian prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told the country's cabinet of ministers today.
"The problem is that the [planned] units were designed according to Russian reactors, but we are finding a solution and intend to sign an agreement on the construction of new units by the end of this year," Yatsenyuk said, according to Russian news agency Itar-Tass.
It's not just natural gas that keeps Ukraine under Russia's thumb. Almost all the fuel for Ukraine's 15 nuclear reactors comes from Russia, too.
But just as Ukraine is struggling to diversify away from Russian natural gas, it is also eager to break Moscow's virtual monopoly over its nuclear fuel.
Pennsylvania-based Westinghouse Electric Co. told various media outlets this week it will renew a contract with Ukraine's Energoatom that will extend and expand its flow of nuclear fuel to the struggling nation. The deal is valued at $100 million.
The FINANCIAL -- The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has decided to participate in a comprehensive safety upgrade programme for the operating nuclear power units of Ukraine with a €300 million loan.
The programme will bring the fleet of Ukraine ’s nuclear power plants in line with international safety standards, including those of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Russia is proposing to build a high-voltage electricity cable from Kaliningrad to Germany across the Baltic Sea to export power produced from a newly to be built nuclear power plant. The cable would be laid alongside the last part of the gas pipeline Nordstream that Gazprom is building together with western partners and that will be used to transport gas direct from Russia to Germany across the Baltic Sea. The electricity cable would similarly bypass third countries, in this case Poland. A representative from the German Ministry of Economic Affairs says he does not expect Germany to be willing to acquiesce to the plan. ‘I cannot imagine that the German public will want to import nuclear power (“Atomstrom”) from Russia’, he says.
Ukraine and Russia signed Wednesday an agreement on cooperation in construction of two nuclear power reactors at Ukraine's Khmelnytskiy Nuclear Power Plant, the government reported.
The agreement was signed in Kiev by Yuriy Boyko, the Ukrainian energy and fuel minister, and Sergei Kiriyenko, the general director of Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear power corporation. The value of the agreement was not disclosed. Ukraine had been seeking to attract investments worth about $3.83 billion that would be enough to build the two reactors at Khmelnytskiy NPP by the end of 2016.
Dec 5 (Interfax) - Russia's Federal Service for Ecological, Technological and Nuclear Oversight (Rostekhnadzor) registered two minor events at nuclear power plants in November 2008.
On November 12, Balakovskaya NPP's power unit N2 switched off without activation of the emergency system, the agency said in a press release. Rostekhnadzor has already completed an investigation of this incident. The discharge occurred as a result of a switch- off of the primary circulatory pumps, caused by the loss of a pressure signal in the lubrication system's oil pumps, the agency said.
KOLONTAYEVO (Moscow Region), October 21 (RIA Novosti) - Ukraine is set to sign three nuclear fuel deals with Russia by the end of this year, the president of the Ukrainian nuclear power plant operator Energoatom said on Tuesday.
Yuriy Nedashkovskiy said two of the deals involved fuel supplies for Ukrainian nuclear power plants, while the other covers the production and enrichment of nuclear fuel from Ukrainian raw materials.
KIEV, September 26 (RIA Novosti) - Ukraine's government has proposed allocating 450 million hryvnias ($90 million) in next year's budget to set up a strategic nuclear fuel reserve, the country's UNIAN new agency said.
"I think we will start gradually forming a fuel reserve next year," Yuri Nedashkovsky, head of state nuclear power utility Energoatom, was quoted as saying on Thursday.
He said the allocation had been included in the draft budget for 2009.
PRIORITIES FOR UKRAINE'S NUCLEAR INDUSTRY were the focus of a June 12 strategy meeting led by Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant. According to a statement released by Ukraine's nuclear operator, Energoatom, Tymoshenko said that immediate priorities include the construction of two new units at the Khmelnitsky nuclear power station and life extension for Rovno-1 and -2 and South Ukraine-1, which are now scheduled to end production between 2011 and 2013. She also identified the treatment of spent fuel and the development of a complete fuel cycle capability as priorities.
Kiev, 25 July: The third unit of the Rivne nuclear power plant was automatically disconnected from the Ukrainian power network and shut down on Thursday [24 July], the Emergency Situations Ministry said.
The ministry explained the shutdown with the insufficient level of water in the steam generator's cooler. The radiation is normal, the ministry said.
