This article was reprinted with permission after being published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
The world’s largest producer of plutonium is one step closer to constructing a nuclear power plant.
The final of 20 people hearings held in Astana, the Kazakh money, were held last week prior to a fall-related national referendum on whether to start producing nuclear energy.
The style was not that dissimilar from those that were held in different cities.
Official presentations simply gave people two days to speak, with those who wanted to ask questions only two minutes.
After that period of time, those who continued to speak were ushered out of the speaker.
Some critics not yet managed to visit the venue.
Meiirkhan Abdimanapov, an anti-nuclear activist, was detained in Almaty on August 19 ahead of his trip to Astana, and he was detained there on August 19 and was given a fine of 129, 000 tenges ($ 270 ).
His involvement in a six-month-old rally was the official cause of his incarceration.
He claimed that the real reason for his decribing the training as” an advertisement for a nuclear power plant” was to prevent him from doing it again on August 16 at the largest city in Kazakhstan.
Then there was the challenge that reporters from RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service witnessed inside the Astana hotel where the hearing was held on August 20.
What did you say about allowing others to speak openly while preventing others from gaining access? campaigner Nagizhan Toleubaev was reportedly attempting to enter the event’s principal room as minders tried to stop him.
” Did n’t the president himself want the issue to be put to public discussion? How do you describe your steps”?
The hearings that started last year on the shores of Lake Balkhash, which is near the potential nuclear facility’s likely location, have also featured a lot of psychological speeches.
Toleubaev, who was later admitted into the question-and-answer program, warned officials that “future years will damned you” if the nuclear power plant goes away. Afterward, a group of stooped, well-built people standing near pulled him out of the microphone.
And criticism will certainly only grow louder as the vote, which pro-nuclear President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev has not yet set a deadline for, gets closer.
But why is his leadership making this difficult decision?
One explanation for this is undoubtedly the apparent expansion of the energy gap. Another possibility is that its domineering ally Russia, which some believe is a shoo-in, will pressure it to create the plant.
Rosatom: First Among Equal?
Nuclear energy is a cleaner form of power era than the coal-heated, frequently aging thermal power plants that most Kazakh cities also rely on, according to researchers from the government-affiliated panelists present at the public sessions.
However, it is also more contentious, not just because of the recent concern over nuclear power in general following the 2011 injury at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. It is also more contentious.
For four years during the Soviet Union, the northern portion of Kazakhstan hosted standard, Moscow-directed nuclear assessments.
The effects of those tests on people and the environment are also present today.
The threat posed by a nuclear power plant in a possible conflict situation is another source of worry, which at least one speech made at the Astana function.
Earlier in the conflict, Soviet troops surrounded and occupied the largest nuclear plant in Europe, Zaporizhzhya, which was located in eastern Ukraine.
In this regard, the regional threats made frequently against Kazakhstan by Russian officials and analysts after Astana failed to support Moscow’s war have done much to appeal to the prospect of a Russian-built nuclear facility.
Togzhan Kassenova, a nuclear politicians professional, said,” A nation cannot be seen as a trusted partner in the nuclear industry if its military illegally occupies the nuclear services of another royal status and creates unprecedented atomic risks.”
According to Kassenova, the author of the book Atomic Steppe: How Kazakhstan Gave Up The Bomb, the difficulties that American sanctions might have on a Russian-led nuclear initiative in Kazakhstan was present for Rosatom, which is a nonstarter for both political and sensible reasons.
Tet the government has suggested then.
Before Toqaev declared a vote on the development of a nuclear power plant may be held, the Kazakh Energy Ministry stated that Rosatom was one of four companies whose units were being considered for the flower, with EDF of France, the China National Nuclear Corporation, and Korea Hydro &, Nuclear Power of South Korea as the other three.
In the past, Kazakh officials have pushed the idea of an international collaboration to create the plant’s possible construction.
However, deniers of the notion that Russian project management is unavoidable need not look far.
In the month of November, former energy minister Zhurabek Mirzamahmudov in neighboring Uzbekistan stated that the country’s authorities were looking at the “experience and technologies” of other nations, not only Russia, with whom Uzbekistan had previously discussed building a nuclear power plant.
However, when Russian leader Vladimir Putin traveled to the Central Asian nation for talks in May, Tashkent and Moscow eventually came to an agreement on a Russian-built, small nuclear power plant ( SMR ).
In Kazakhstan, Moscow and Astana are now cooperating in the nuclear world in higher learning.
A group of students and graduates from the Almaty branch of the National Research Nuclear University ( NRNU) was one of the young supporters of nuclear power in Astana last week.
More than a year before Toqaev announced the nuclear power plant plan may be put to a national vote, the NRNU established an online on the Al-Farabi Kazakh National University in 2022.
” A Test Of Patriotism,”
Some doubt that the Kazakh election will provide a “yes”, despite obvious opposition.
The state has access to the country’s sources, so the atomic strength campaign is successful.
Naysayers, however, complain they have been consistently refused permission from town councils to maintain protests against the proposed grow.
However, some people find some compelling arguments in favor of atomic energy.
Some residents of Ulken, where the first public hearing on the task took place in August 2023, expressed joy for the tree’s ability to provide local work for a depressed area, perhaps as Balkhash fishermen voiced concern about the future of their business.
Energy shortages are a growing issue across the country, especially in the provinces, where great consumption in the densely populated south is having a significant impact on the national grid.
Last month, Kazakhstan’s state-run Samruk Energy business projected the national power imbalance was twice to achieve 3 gigawatts by 2029.
Kazakhstan’s upcoming nuclear power plant is anticipated to be significantly larger in terms of power than Uzbekistan’s currently operational 330-megawatt type, a downsize from the plant Tashkent had originally intended to construct.
Speakers at an event organized by anti-nuclear campaigners in Almaty in September acknowledged that locals who experience frequent power outages may be easily persuaded of the advantages of nuclear energy.
They claimed that what the government has n’t done is provide the populace with sustainable and environmentally friendly solutions to the plant, such as increasing wind and solar creation.
On August 27, Energy Minister Almasadam Satkaliev proposed a presidential decree allowing a statewide vote to be held at a federal conference, which was supported by the government.
Toqaev, who earlier promised that the election had been held in the slide, is expected to label a date immediately.
Blaming “independent blogs” and press for stirring up criticism of the nuclear programs, Satkaliev said a Kazakh individual’s status on nuclear energy was a “test” of “intellect…patriotism…decency”, with competitors evidently failing on all three counts.
Nuclear power was needed for” the next frontier, for the development of the economy and science, so that the country reaches a new civilizational level of development”, Satkaliev added.
