Analytical Report Cooperation between Russia and Kazakhstan in Nuclear Power Published
Almaty, 24 January 2011. Nuclear power has all chances to become an engine of economic growth and integration in Eurasia – this conclusion is drawn by the authors of the analytical report on Russian-Kazakh cooperation in this sector published by the EDB in January.
“Today nuclear power plays an increasingly prominent role in the global economy and enjoys a renaissance. Nuclear energy is three times cheaper than wind energy and five times cheaper than solar energy”, comments Yevgeny Vinokurov, Head of the EDB Economic Analysis & Consulting, one of the authors. “Effectively, the operation of a NPP is not accompanied by any greenhouse gas emission. If all the world’s 440 reactors were replaced with conventional thermal power plants, generation of the same quantity of electricity would lead to an annual increase in atmospheric carbon emission of 3.2 billion tonnes. Moreover, comprehensive development of nuclear power brings about numerous economic benefits for Russia and Kazakhstan as the major players on this market and can potentially influence the general economic growth dynamics in the region in the most positive way”.
In 2009 uranium production in Kazakhstan rose by 63% to about 14,000 tonnes. Thus, the country became the leading producer of uranium (28%), outperforming Canada (24%) and Australia (19%). Russia controls 34% of the uranium enrichment market, 22% of the conversion market, 12% of the nuclear fuel market and 12% of the nuclear plant construction market.
The competitive advantages of Russia and Kazakhstan complement each other, and therefore closer cooperation between these two countries is a precondition for their development and realising their potential for leadership. The need for integration of the Russian and Kazakh nuclear sectors is warranted by economic and political reasons, particularly, complementarity of production assets and technology at different steps of the nuclear fuel cycle inherited from the Soviet period.
“Cooperation with Russia can enable Kazakhstan to emerge not only as an international supplier of raw materials but also as a nation supplying higher-grade products of the nuclear fuel cycle in the near future,” says Yevgeny Vinokurov. “Russia, in turn, will benefit as greatly by accessing raw materials. Rosatom has already become a leader in terms of joint projects and joint production with Kazatomprom: Russian-Kazakh joint ventures are responsible for over 25% of all Atomredmetzoloto’s uranium production”.
The report also addresses the global trends in nuclear power development, the current status of nuclear power in Russia and Kazakhstan, and contains an analysis of the bilateral cooperation between Moscow and Astana and their joint initiatives and projects in the CIS.
This industry report is a part of the EDB’s series on regional integration processes in various sectors of the economy. The whole series is freely available at: https://eabr.org/analytics/