NEW RUSSIAN REACTOR CONCEPTS

In accordance with the expansion program for nuclear power plants pres ented in 1992 by the Russian Prime Minister, Victor Chernomyrdin, plan ts with an aggregate installed capacity totaling 16,500 MWe are to be added by 2015. Despite the present lack of funds to execute these plan s, the intentions have not been given up. Planning and design efforts are concentrated on advanced developments as well as new developments of several reactor lines: pressurized water and boiling water reactors , one successor to the RBMK reactor, fast breeders, and nuclear heatin g plants and nuclear cogeneration plants. Not only is the future of nu clear power to be put on a secure basis for domestic use, but the new reactors are planned to generate foreign exchange income in internatio nal competition. Existing sites of nuclear power plants are to be expa nded further, or old plants are to be replaced by new ones, and new si tes are to be developed so as to allow new industries to be establishe d in a most flexible way as a consequence of the installation of nucle ar heating plants and cogeneration plants.