OREANDA-NEWS. On November 20, 2007 a seminar "Materials for Nuclear Power Industry of Russia" took place at Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys, reported the press-centre of MISA.

The lifespan of a nuclear power unit must be no less than 60 years and this is not the limit: already today designers mention 80 years, the deputy director general for scientific-technical policy of Atomenergoprom Pyotr Schedrovitsky said while opening the seminar "Materials for Nuclear Power Industry of Russia" at the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys.

Today, the stable work of a reactor is guarantee of the safety and economic efficiency of a nuclear power plant. Now that energy demand and energy prices are growing worldwide, we cannot afford losing electricity. Today, producers are ready to spend a lot of money to minimize their production losses. In this light, the lifespan of a reactor is a crucial factor. It requires effective quality management and process control.

This is a serious task and it cannot be solved by extensive growth only. The Federal Target Program says that by 2020 Russia should build 26 reactors and should increase the share of nuclear power plants in its total electricity production to 20%-23%. Today, our NPPs produce 16% of total electricity. In order to preserve this figure, we need to increase the capacity of our NPPs by 2,5 times, in order to attain 25% — by 4 times.

Besides, Russia should strengthen its positions on the NPP equipment market. There are few rivals there but they are big international corporations: Toshiba-Westinghouse, AREVA-Mitsubishi, Hitachi-General Electric.

Today, the Russian Government is spending big money on research projects and their effective practical application. For this purpose, Rosatom is planning to carry out an inventory of research projects and to outline priorities. Today’s seminar is a good opportunity to discuss our plans with experts, Schedrovitsky said.

The seminar has shown that the fail-safety of equipment depends not so much on the quality of materials as on the quality of operation.

The NPP-2006 project and its prototypes – Kudankulam NPP (India) and Tianwan NPP (China) — were presented at the seminar. NPP-2006 is based on innovative technological solutions, but not only: the project applies interesting approaches to owner-designer relationship based on the principle of royalty.

One of the key topics of the seminar was, certainly, the training of researchers and nuclear power engineers. Moscow Engineering Physics Institute and Moscow Institute of Steel and Allows presented their personnel training projects. Particularly, a MEPI representative presented a project for establishing a Federal Nuclear University on the basis of the institute. The university is supposed to consolidate the best research and training capacities of the nuclear sector.

Rector of MISA D.Livanov forecasted that the shortage of highly-qualified engineers and managers would become the most serious challenge to the development of innovative economy in Russia. The key solution to this problem is change of the content of education: students must be able to apply their knowledge and skills in practice, they must be taught responsibility and ability to manage people. In their turn, university professors must have practical experience in research and management.

MISA is a research university applying different forms of cooperation: training programs, joint technological projects, engineering centers, seminars. The seminar “Materials for Nuclear Power Industry of Russia” was one of the above-mentioned forms.