"Construction of the nuclear power plant will be one of guarantees of Belarus’ national security," Igor Olegov, associate professor of New Social University, told REGNUM today, on February 12, commenting on the information that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko made a decision to build a nuclear power plant with total electric power capacity of 2,000 megawatt.
“Nowadays, the country gets most part of electricity from Russia,” noted Olegov. “Until now, Minsk had no troubles with the imported energy except for the talks about gas prices, but the Belarusian authorities intend to settle soon the economic and political question of the country’s energy independence. The Belarussian NPP is likely to be constructed in Mogilev Region, 100 kilometers from the Russian border, and surely Russia will take part in the tender for construction.”
As REGNUM reported earlier, according to President Lukashenko’s decree signed in January 2008, the first reactor of the NPP is planned to be put into operation in 2016, the second one is planned to be launched in 2018. The final location of the planned NPP is to be chosen this spring. Currently, relevant legal framework in nuclear power engineering is being elaborated in the republic. The preparation for an international tender for construction of the NPP is continuing. The construction is arranged to enhance greatly energy security of Belarus. The cost price of electricity production at a nuclear power plant is by 1.5 or 2 times cheaper than the one at thermoelectric ones. Launching the nuclear power plant will allow replacing about 5 billion cubic meters of natural gas in the Belarusian fuel balance.
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