Ukrainian News
23 September 2010

Ukraine deems acceptable use of Canadian heavy-water reactors CANDU in Ukraine's energy system, deputy fuel and energy minister Natalia Shumkova has told journalists.

In her words, a special commission of the Energoatom national nuclear energy generating company has produced such a conclusion.

"For an extended period of time Energoatom's commission was considering offers of AE?L (Canada), and made evaluation of the possibility of using CANDU reactors alongside thermal reactors in our energy system," she said.

In his turn Hryhorii Raspokyn, the director of Energoatom's department for handling nuclear fuel, stressed that CANDU reactors in terms of separate safety parameters for the better differed from the VVER light water-cooled and moderated reactors.

Apart from this, he says application of the Canadian reactors will allow using spent nuclear fuel for generation of electric energy.

"CANDU is an installation which in fact allows generating energy on that for what we paid in the past years," he said.

This decision of the Energoatom commission regarding the Canadian reactors will make it possible to take part intenders for realization of nuclear energy technology projects.

As Ukrainian News earlier reported, the Cabinet of Ministers validated TVEL (Russia) the winner in a competition for provision of technology for building a nuclear fuel factory in Ukraine.

In May 2008, Energoatom and Atom Energy of Canada Ltd. signed a memorandum of understanding and cooperation in the area of atomic energy industry.

CANDU is a pressurized heavy water reactor.

Ukraine's active nuclear power plants run two VVER-440 and 13 VVER-1000 reactors.