After a memorable meeting with nuclear workers in the Central Russian town of Udomlya, the site of Kalinin Nuclear Power Plant, where he pledged his support to the development of the peaceful atom at home, Prime Minister Putin has made another move inviting the temptation to cast him as a new faithful lobbyist of atomic energy – this time, abroad.

During his visit to Turkey on August 6 this year, Putin again was advertising harmful nuclear technologies and even announced an extravagant low-balling move – a promise to build a nuclear power plant in Turkey for only half of what such sites usually go for. Russia’s premier did not delve into specifics on the numbers, but experts are mentioning a $5 bn to $6bn price-tag per one reactor of a design capacity of 1 to 1.2 gigawatt, dismantling costs not included.

“The offer we are making today is twice as cheap as analogous projects [on offer] in the United States. So [it is] quite competitive,” Putin said in Ankara. It seems appropriate to conclude the competitiveness of Russian nuclear energy technologies may be rooted not so much in their quality or reliability as in the extremely low prices, a policy kept viable by the vigorous support the Russian nuclear industry receives from the state.

It is precisely through export credits that financing is made available for nuclear power plant projects developed by the Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom in India, China, and Iran. The same is now being offered to Turkey.

NPP tender draws only bidder
The new nuclear power plant (NPP) was suggested for a town of Akkuyu, located on the Turkish coast of the Mediterranean Sea north of Cyprus. Incidentally, plans to build a nuclear power plant at the site floated about a decade ago, but were unexpectedly cancelled in 2000 by then-Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, who was quoted in media reports as saying at the time: “It is unnecessary for us, for the time being, to invest in nuclear energy.”

Ecevit emphasized, according to reports, that Turkey would focus on energy conservation and invest in natural gas, hydro-electricity, as well as solar and wind generation. The NPP project was provisionally reinstated in 2006, however. According to the Turkish press, another bidding date for the Akkuyu plant was set in March 2008 by the Turkish Electricity Trading and Contracting Company (TETAŞ), which slated tender proceedings to be held in the following September.

However, a number of issues yet to be settled still impede the conclusion of the tender, among which are construction costs and wholesale electric power prices projected for when the plant goes online.

In contrast to the previous bidding held in 1997, Western companies did not participate in the tender this time and the only bidder was a consortium comprising Turkey’s Park Teknik and Russia’s Atomstroiexport and Inter RAOUES. Atomstroiexport is Rosatom’s entity responsible for carrying out intergovernmental cooperation agreements and Inter RAO UES, formerly RAO UES of Russia, is an electric power trader on both the domestic and foreign markets and a leading exporter and importer of electric power in Russia.

Last May, Turkey’s nuclear authority accepted the consortium’s offer, which envisions four reactors, each with a capacity of 1,200 megawatt. Terms of agreement include the expectation that funding, as well as construction and operation of the new site, will be provided by the Russian supplier, while Turkey will be responsible for licensing and electric power purchase guarantees for the next fifteen years.

The offer had been developed within Rosatom’s AES-2006 project (AES in Russian stands for Nuclear Power Plant). According to Rosatom’s official description of the project, AES-2006 (VVER-1200) “…is a design of a standardized Russian nuclear power plant of Generation III+ featuring improved technical and economic performance characteristics. The goal is to attain up-to-date safety and reliability characteristics with the optimisation of construction costs. The design is based on VVER reactor with at least 1,150 megawatt and the possibility of upgrading to 1,200 megawatt. Design capacity factor is 92% and refuelling interval up to 24 months.”

Two nuclear power plants are currently being designed with VVER-1200 reactors: second stages of construction for the sites in Novovoronezh, in Central European Russia, and at Leningrad NPP, near St. Petersburg.

Protesters in Turkey made symbolic “nuclear matryoshkas” – famous Russian nesting dolls – featuring images of Russian premier Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to carry their message across.

http://www.greenpeace.org/turkey/

This means that the Akkuyu project cannot be a financially attractive venture without robust support afforded from state coffers. Russia did, in fact, promise such support. In a nuclear energy cooperation protocol signed between Russia and Turkey, Moscow affirmed its obligation to consider issuing preferential-rate credit loans to the project’s Russian contractors – an incentive vitally needed for the construction to start.
 
The very idea, however, spawns a number of bewildered questions having to do with gas export agreements concluded during the same visit. The latter centred on the construction of the South Stream gas pipeline – a 900-kilometre link under the Black Sea from Russia to Bulgaria seen as a competitor to the European Union-backed Nabucco link into Central Europe – and on extending the Blue Stream pipeline, which crosses the Black Sea from Russia to Turkey, south into the Middle East.

Besides, Turkey is already a participant of the Nabucco pipeline plans. Therefore, Russian and Caspian gas exports will start flowing into Turkey well before the Akkuyu nuclear power plant goes online. Will it be completely off-the-mark to surmise that Turkey may be following Iran’s path in wanting atomic technologies for something other than peaceful purposes?

A Greenpeace activist getting detained during an anti-nuclear protest in Turkey’s capital Ankara on August 6th.

http://www.greenpeace.org/turkey/