Izvestia: "Tver Region competing for nuclear power station"
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was invited to visit the Kalininskaya nuclear power station in the town of Udomlya, Tver Region, several times. The station's director, Leonid Martynovchenko, repeatedly invited Putin to attend the launch of the new power unit (construction started in 1985). The last time he repeated this invitation was at the conference on the performance of the fuel-and-energy sector in early 2011.
In preparations for the visit of their distinguished guest, security was ousting journalists from the St. Nicholas Church on the 7th floor of the plant's administrative office.
"Nobody is allowed in here. You can come when the first person leaves. What if you jinx us!" a tough security officer said abruptly.
The apprehensions of the locals were understandable. Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Rosatom (the Federal Atomic Energy Agency) explained that the government had already decided to build a nuclear power station in a central region, and several sites have been studied, including the one in the Tver Region but the final decision is still pending. "There is tough competition for the right to build a new plant," Kiriyenko said.
This is no surprise – the introduction of the fourth unit of the Kalininskaya station alone will increase tax revenues in the regional budget by almost 433 million roubles; next year the overall taxes will amount to 1.6 billion roubles. Employee salaries at the plant are some of the highest in the country – the operations personnel make over 50,000 roubles per month.
Launched in November, the unit produced 440 MW of energy. Together with the prime minister, the station's employees activated an increase of its capacity to 500 MW in a ceremonial atmosphere. An engineer explained some details to Izvestia: "We simply opened some valves for the turbine and the capacity went up." After testing, the unit's capacity will be doubled.
A group of plant workers and engineers waited for Putin at the exit. Igor Kruuz, the construction director, said: "More than 6,500 top notch professionals built this generating unit. If a decision to construct a new plant in Tver is made today, we'll save a lot of money."
The plant's deputy director, Marina Karasyova, enhanced the request of the builders with souvenirs – a gold key ring with seven letters spelling "Thank you" and four Christmas ornaments with images of other nuclear stations.
"We presented these 'Thank you' key rings to all those who helped us launch the fourth unit and we are hoping the prime minister will decide on the construction of a new plant in Tver," she told Izvestia.
Kruuz said that the builders have already saved about nine billion roubles on the construction of the fourth unit (it cost 70 billion roubles as opposed to the budgeted 78.9 billion).
Kruuz suggested spending the savings on the construction of kindergartens and schools for the children of the plant's builders and employees.
"Now the savings are channeled into Rosatom's development fund but I think part of them will be spent on building social infrastructure," the prime minister said.
He charged Kiriyenko with resolving this issue, adding that the Energy Ministry will make a decision on where to build a new power station. Kiriyenko said there and then: "No doubt, it will be more convenient to build it here."
The government is planning to increase the volume of nuclear generated energy in Russia from 16% to 25% by 2030.
Alexander Matveyev Alexandra Bayazitova
