Nuclear industry of Russia: areas of activity, main directions and tasks

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

From the launch in 1954 in the city of Obninsk of the world's first power plant operating on the energy of uranium isotopes, the nuclear industry begins its history. It was planned that the share of nuclear energy by the beginning of the second millennium would be at least 25% of the global electricity generation. But, unfortunately, due to serious accidents, including at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, by 2000, only 6% of the world's electricity was generated using nuclear fuel.

However, despite the very meager performance, several areas have emerged in this industry. They are of no small importance in the economic, defense and industrial sectors of many countries of the world.

Organization of the nuclear industry

For more than half a century of development of nuclear technologies in Russia, four large, inextricably linked research and production complexes have been formed:

1. Energy. He is in charge of the extraction, enrichment and production of nuclear fuel, the creation of enterprises in such a field as nuclear energy, the nuclear industry.
2. Army. Leading the development and testingnew types of nuclear weapons.
3. Radiation safety. Designed to protect the present and future generation from the harmful effects of ionizing radiation.
4. Nuclear Medicine. Introduces radionuclide drugs in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases.

The nuclear industry also includes a research complex that develops fundamental and applied knowledge in nuclear physics, as well as a nuclear icebreaker fleet. At present, the Russian nuclear industry includes more than 250 enterprises. Its main task is the wider use of nuclear technologies for peaceful purposes.

Energy Complex

Due to the inextricable link between the nuclear industry and the country's security, all power is concentrated in the hands of the state corporation Rosatom. It is she who is in charge of the development and implementation of nuclear technologies in the spheres of human activity. Uranium is mined mainly in Kazakhstan. The nuclear industry plans to expand its borders and start cooperating with other countries - Namibia, Armenia, Canada.

Uranium enrichment is carried out by four joint-stock companies, and nuclear fuel is produced by the large company TVEL, which provides all 10 operating nuclear power plants in Russia, as well as 17% of all nuclear power plants in the world.

Nuclear weapons complex

Enterprises of the nuclear weapons complex are not separate divisions of the Russian defense industry. They are closelyinteract with other organizations, including civil companies. The main consumers of nuclear products in this sector are the railway, automotive and oil and gas industries.

The main task of the NWC, which includes the nuclear industry, is to pursue a policy of nuclear deterrence - to protect the territory and citizens of the country from nuclear weapons of other countries. For this purpose, the complex includes several federal nuclear centers.

Radiation Safety Complex

Protection of people and the environment from radiation exposure is an unshakable postulate of Rosatom.

To achieve this goal, the complex included several enterprises that annually resolve issues in two main areas:

• Ensuring trouble-free operation of existing nuclear industry enterprises. It develops and implements projects to protect nuclear reactors from natural disasters, terrorist attacks, as well as the environment from radioactive radiation.
• Utilization of spent fuel residues, as well as the elimination of the facilities of the "Atomic Project" of the USSR that have become unusable.

Annually, the nuclear industry receives about 150 billion rubles to solve these issues.

Nuclear Medicine

In cooperation with the Federal Biomedical Agency, a nuclear medicine complex is being created, which will become completely autonomous. PET-centers (centers for positron emission tomography), the equipment of which will allow early detection of tumors, metastases and pathological foci.

The complex includes laboratories that deal with isotope standardization and quality control, as well as directly medical centers that diagnose and treat patients.

Nuclear technologies are becoming more and more integral to our lives. Now about 190 thousand people are employed in this area in the country. And it is not surprising that the Government of the Russian Federation has determined a calendar day - September 28, which an employee of the nuclear industry can consider his professional holiday.