On April 27, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to restructure the national nuclear energy industry, an effort that has been in progress for more than a year.

The dis-parate enterprises that have until now been responsible for prospecting for uranium, producing fuel, building power plants, manufacturing equipment, and exporting nuclear technology, will all be under the roof of one nuclear corporation, controlled by the government.

In his annual State of the Nation address to Parliament on April 26, President Putin said that this major reform of the nuclear sector will be “the country’s second comprehensive electrification,” a reference to the massive project to bring electricity for the first time to Russia’s population, starting in the 1920s. “Power generation in Russia is to grow 66% by 2020,” he reported. The share of nuclear energy in that power production will be raised to 25%.

Russia’s nuclear industry is spreading its activities and inviting international participation. On April 10, RIA Novosti reported that Russia is considering inviting foreign nuclear companies to cooperate in the construction of a new nuclear power plant in Russia’s energy-short Far East. “Given the fact that the [nuclear] compound will be built in the immediate vicinity of Japan, I deem it right and realistic to consider cooperation prospects, and to engage Japanese companies—and possibly Chinese and South Korean ones, as well—in supplying equipment for the plant, and in designing it jointly,” Russian nuclear chief Sergei Kiriyenko said in Moscow.

“Cooperation on the first such new nuclear power plant could pave the way to international integration in building nuclear power plants in third countries.”

In January last year, Putin made the first Russian initiative to create International Uranium Enrichment Centers in Russia, under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Any nation will be allowed to participate, if it respects IAEA policy and uses the uranium purely for civilian energy generation.

On May 10, Putin and Kazakstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev oversaw the signing of a bilateral agreement to set up an enrichment center in Angarsk, East Siberia. This civilian-use policy of Putin is important for Japan, because it separates Russia’s military and civilian nuclear facilities.

Speaking in Tokyo May 14, Shunsuke Kondo, chairman of the Japanese Atomic Energy Commission, said: “Russia’s nuclear energy world in the past was one solid unit. There’s been a great effort on the Russian side to divide these two functions.” Japan has no atomic weapons and will cooperate only in civilian use of nuclear technology with other nations. Kondo said that Japan supports the idea of international uranium enrichment centers, which Russia and Kazakstan have agreed to set up.

Japan is very interested in Russia’s advanced fastbreeder- reactor technology, which produces plutonium which can be used for nuclear fuel. “We also want to diversify our supplier base,” Kondo said. Japan already has 53 nuclear plants, generating 30% of its electricity; it plans to increase this to 40% by 2030, and to develop fast-breeder reactors.

Looking toward the future, Russia’s Kurchatov Institute of nuclear science has been participating in experiments with the U.S.-based company Thorium Power on fuel rods that use thorium instead of uranium as a nuclear fuel. One of the experiments conducted was with a fuel assembly that would be applicable to those used in Russian-designed VVER pressurized water reactors. A few nations, such as India, which are poor in uranium resources, are rich in thorium reserves.