Sergey Kondratiev, Deputy Head of the Economic Department of the Institute for Energy and Finance, commented to Vzglyad.ru on the supply of Russian nuclear fuel to the United States.
After the United States refused to buy Russian oil, there are more and more speculations that the West may refuse to supply another type of fuel from Russia - nuclear. We are talking about uranium and special fuel assemblies for nuclear power plants. Ukraine has already announced the rejection of them. But what happens if these plans are implemented? It’ll be nothing good for the West.
“Energoatom's intention to completely abandon the supply of Russian fuel is difficult to fulfill,” Sergey Kondratyev said.
As for Europe, a number of countries have Soviet-designed reactors, and deliveries of Russian nuclear fuel are extremely important for them. These are the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary and Finland. “If the EU imposes sanctions against Russian nuclear fuel, it will mean a gradual shutdown of these facilities and a serious energy crisis. The Czech Republic and Bulgaria will have a particularly hard time. If the embargo continues for a long time, then these countries will have to decommission their nuclear reactors,” Sergey Kondratiev says.
Unlike Westinghouse, Russia has long mastered the technology of producing nuclear fuel for Western-style reactors. Therefore, Western Europe and the USA also buy our fuel.“These European countries have no safe alternatives to Russian nuclear fuel. We do not know if the Americans have made any progress in producing nuclear fuel for Soviet-designed reactors. But I'm not sure that the governments of these European countries, unlike Ukraine, will want to take such a big risk,” Sergey Kondratiev explains.
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