Moscow: Government officials said Friday that Russia will build two nuclear reactors annually through 2015, and increase to four a year by 2020 in an effort to sharply increase atomic power generation, according to Russian news agencies.
First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, one of two likely contenders to succeed President Vladimir Putin in next year's election, said Russia should not rely exclusively on dwindling oil, gas and other hydrocarbons.
"The need to diversify our energy balance is obvious," Ivanov was quoted as saying by ITAR-Tass, Interfax and RIA Novosti.
Russia has 31 reactors at 10 nuclear power plants, accounting for 16 per cent to 17 per cent of its electricity generation. Putin has called for raising the share of nuclear-generated power to at least 25 per cent by 2030.
Ivanov said that Russia will launch two 1,000-megawatt nuclear reactors a year under a program for which the government has allocated $26 billion through 2015.
"Nuclear industry must become a backbone of Russia's modern energy sector," Ivanov was quoted as saying.
Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the Federal Nuclear Power Agency, said that starting in 2016, Russia will be building three reactors a year and four annually beginning in 2020, the agencies said.
In recent years, Russia has overcome a public backlash against nuclear power that followed the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, and the government has supported efforts to revive the industry.
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