Pro-democracy movement Solidarity is opening a new front in its attack on the government, opposing an ambitious plan to invest $33 billion to build nuclear power stations through 2020, Vladimir Milov, one of the group’s leaders, said Tuesday.
Milov, a former deputy energy minister, pounced on the efforts to construct 26 nuclear power stations, saying they endanger national security; are unnecessary because of the abundance of natural gas to power electricity generation; and brew environmental concerns in areas where they will operate.
A Rosatom source rejected the assertions Tuesday, and energy analysts have generally approved of the government’s plan to boost its nuclear power capacity.
“It’s a dangerous adventure of the Russian authorities,” Milov said at a news conference. “It’s one of the projects that we believe we should stop as a matter of our civic duty.”
Solidarity was created by former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov and chess champion Garry Kasparov, and last weekend the group organized one of the largest protests in a decade — decrying plans to increase the local transportation tax in Kaliningrad. Milov said he participated in the rally.
Milov said nuclear power stations cost too much to construct, making their electricity more expensive than energy generated at gas-powered stations. Stronger reliance on nuclear power would undermine national security, he said, because Russia would not have sufficient uranium to meet the increased demand for nuclear fuel.
Solidarity will support attempts by a group of residents in Murom, a town of 118,000 in the Vladimir region, to resist the planned construction of a nuclear plant 22 kilometers away, Milov said.
In doing so, opposition leaders will be siding with local members of the ruling United Russia party. Yevgeny Rychkov, a United Russia member in the Vladimir regional legislature, has joined Murom Mayor Valentin Kachevan and other local activists in opposition to the plant, said Vasily Vakhlyayev, a Murom town council deputy who also spoke at the news conference.
Vakhlyayev said fears of higher radiation from the plant would scare off tourists from visiting the ancient Russian town, which is known for its churches.
“We want to develop tourism,” Vakhlyayev said. “The construction of the nuclear power station would ruin all of our plans.”
A rally to protest the construction drew 4,000 Murom residents in September, one month after the town found out about Rosatom’s preparations to start the work, he said.
Activists then created an organization to fight Rosatom by sending letters signed by more than 60,000 people to President Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin — who approved Rosatom’s 1 trillion ruble ($33.2 billion) construction program in 2008 — and the State Duma, he said.
The only response, however, came from Rosatom, which said the station would be a boon for the area, Vakhlyayev said.
The Rosatom source defended the effort to build this and the other stations, saying that while they are expensive to construct, they will recoup the investment over time. Russia boasts the world’s second-largest reserves of uranium after Australia, enough to cover any future needs, he said, declining to be identified because he was not authorized to respond to Milov’s criticism.
Murom and Vladimir region residents are protesting because they envy future tax payments from the station, which will go to the nearby Nizhny Novgorod regional budget, he said. Despite sitting so close to Murom, the station will be across the regional border.
Rosatom will hold meetings with residents of the Vladimir and Nizhny Novgorod regions, as well as businessmen in an attempt to convince them of the station’s safety and offer some of the construction contracts, he said.
Dmitry Baranov, an analyst at Finam Asset Management Company, said nuclear power was safe and would cost less with time as Rosatom introduces new technology. Gas, on the contrary, will increase in price because Gazprom is moving to more remote areas such as Arctic shelf to produce its gas.
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