In recent years, the countries of Central Asia, and, above all, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, along with water and environmental problems, have begun to experience an increasing shortage of electricity, which, as global practice shows, may negatively affect the pace of development of national economies in the foreseeable future. The existing electric generating capacities, which are based on gas and coal-fired thermal power plants of Soviet construction, have practically exhausted their resources (they have been in operation for 65-70 years) and will need to be decommissioned in ten years. According to estimates by the Ministry of Energy of Kazakhstan, to replace only these thermal power plants in the republic, it will be necessary to build stations with a total capacity of at least 23 thousand mega watts. In addition, the commissioning of the Central Asia–China regional gas pipeline system with a capacity of 55 billion cubic meters a few years ago, requires 40 billion cubic meters to be supplied by Turkmenistan, and the remaining 15 billion cubic meters are split between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. However, the two countries have not been able to deliver on their export quotas for the last two years.
This is primarily caused not only by a drop in natural gas production, but also by an increase in industrial consumption in the republics themselves (according to the IMF(International Monetary Fund), Kazakhstan’s economy grew by 5.5% and Uzbekistan’s by 5%), all this led to the fact that, at the request of Tashkent and Astana, Russia was forced to reverse one of its branches of the Central Asia–Center gas pipeline to compensate for the missing over 2 billion cubic meters of gas from these republics, so as not to violate the contractual obligations of the republics to Beijing. According to local experts, Kazakhstan alone lacks at least 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas to meet the needs of the national economy. In addition, the local mostly flat landscape and the lack of deep rivers do not allow the construction of large hydroelectric power plants in these republics to generate large amounts of cheap electricity.
Under these conditions, Astana and Tashkent have embarked on the development of their nuclear generation. Hence, in 2024, Uzbekistan signed an agreement with Russia’s Rosatom to deploy six low-power nuclear power plants (six Ritm 200 reactors) in the Jizzakh region of the republic. As for Kazakhstan, at the insistence of the IAEA, in September 2024 the repubic held a national referendum on the construction of a nuclear power plant on Lake Balkhash, which approved this nuclear project by the majority of the country’s population.
In accordance with the rules of the IAEA, Astana must hold an international tender for the construction of a nuclear power plant. To date, the Kazakh side has already selected four potential contractors – companies with experience and international licenses for the construction of nuclear power plants. These are the French Energy de France(ЕDF), the Korean Hydro Nuclear Power (KHNP), the Chinese China National Nuclear Company (CNNC) and Russia’s Rosatom. Experts have found out what competencies these companies have, what are their advantages and disadvantages:
- EDF usually misses the construction deadlines of nuclear power plants, for example, the Olkiluoto NPP in Finland was under construction for 17 years and after the start of its operation, the plant was stopped three times due to numerous breakdowns;
- KHNP- does not have technologies for manufacturing uranium fuel and processing irradiated fuel;
- CNNC– does not have technologies for processing irradiated fuel;
- Rosatom is a leading company in the world with all the necessary competencies for the creation of full-cycle nuclear power plants, including the manufacture of fuel assemblies (fuel rods) and the processing of irradiated fuel.
In view of the above and considering the regard of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Tokayev about the need to involve an “international consortium” in the construction of the NPP, we can refer to the successful “mix” between Russia’s Rosatom and the Chinese CNNC, when together they managed to build the Tianwan NPP in China in 56 months instead of 60 months under the contract. This was achieved due to the division of efforts between the companies.: Rosatom handled the nuclear “island” (reactor, casing, primary circuit equipment), and CNNC handled the second circuit (turbines), which is responsible for generating electricity.
As for the guarantees of the safety of the reactor core, it was fully entrusted to Rosatom, and the guarantee of trouble-free operation of the electricity generation equipment was entrusted to CNNC. Alternatively, the leadership of Kazakhstan may consider this successful “mix”, which will significantly reduce the construction time of the nuclear power plant, and the parties will be able to share their responsibilities: Rosatom for reactor operation and processing of irradiated fuel, and the Chinese side for electricity generation.
Rosatom’s experience in attracting a Belarusian construction company, which has proven itself positively during the construction of the Ostrovets NPP in Belarus, may also be of interest. Currently, Rosatom has involved these Belarusian specialists in the construction of engineering structures at its nuclear power plants under construction in Egypt and Hungary.
The referendum approved the construction of a nuclear power plant in the village of Ulken, Zhambyl district, on the shore of Lake Balkhash with two 1.2 GW units, which, according to the Ministry of Energy of the Kazakh Republic, will completely close the projected shortage of 2.5 GW of electricity in the country by 2030. Moreover, to avoid energy shortages in the future and confirm Kazakhstan’s commitment to achieving carbon neutrality, Astana needs not one, but several nuclear power plants. Thus, the authorities of the Republic of Kazakhstan plan to build a second nuclear power plant on the Irtysh River near Kurchatov town in the Abai region.
Kazakhstan has huge reserves of uranium – the country ranks the world’s second in this indicator and first in terms of production. 14% of all explored world reserves are concentrated in the depths of the republic.
In addition, the local industry has mastered the production of uranium fuel pellets and heat-releasing elements, fuel tods (TVEL). In fact, Kazakhstan can provide itself with nuclear fuel, and it would be strange not to use this opportunity for the development of the country.
According to Kazakh experts, the preliminary cost of building a nuclear power plant in Balkhash will cost 11.2 billion dollars, which is quite acceptable for Astana, given its income, including from the sale of uranium. Thus, according to the IAEA, in just eight months of 2024, Kazakhstan received $2 billion from the sale of enriched natural uranium (“Yellow cake” – uranium oxide). At the same time, the physical volume of sales of uranium ore increased by only 10%, but due to the increase in spot prices for uranium, the republic’s income increased by 54% compared to the same period in 2023.
As for the long-term prospects for the development of nuclear energy in the republic, the expert community was particularly interested in the recent proposal by the President of Kazakhstan Tokayev to the head of Rosatom Likhachev, to explore the possibility of building a floating nuclear power plant (like the Akademik Lomonosov NPP vessel) in the Caspian Sea to provide electricity and desalinated water to the West of the republic, where the main oil production capacities are concentrated and which suffers from the shortage of electricity, which is compensated only by the flow from the Unified Energy System of the Urals. The implementation of this idea will be much cheaper than the construction of a medium-capacity nuclear power plant in the area. At the same time, the difficulty lies in the fact that Russia currently has no available shipbuilding facilities on the Volga and the Caspian Sea. There is an option that a shipyard in Baku can take over the manufacture of the ship’s hull. But this is a matter of future negotiations, including with Azerbaijan.
In conclusion, it is safe to say that the commissioning of the first nuclear power plant in Kazakhstan will automatically increase the prestige of the republic in the world, and the republic itself will become a more industrialized.
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