The 68th Regular Session of the IAEA General Conference is being held from 16 to 20 September 2024 at the Vienna International Centre (VIC) in Vienna, Austria. Immediately following the opening, Rosatom Director General Mr. Alexey Likhachev had another meeting with IAEA Director General Mr. Rafael Grossi.
As a follow-up to their regular contacts, Alexey Likhachev and Rafael Grossi briefly reviewed the main issues of current and prospective cooperation between Russia and the IAEA, as well as industry-specific international events for the coming months. In particular, events related to the topics of closing nuclear fuel cycle and small modular reactors, which the Rosatom Director General highlighted in detail in his speech at the General Conference, were touched upon.
On the following press conference Alexey Likhachev highlighted the importance of creating the next fourth generation of nuclear power. ‘We understand this as a comprehensive solution, including, of course, fast neutron reactors, appropriate fuel refabrication facilities that allow to recycle spent nuclear fuel between reactors of different types multiple times.
This is, of course, work with spent nuclear fuel. All this allows us to talk about a completely new quality of nuclear power of the next generation. The Proryv (‘Breakthrough’) project that we are implementing in the Tomsk region in the city of Seversk is a real confirmation of how it is possible to return to the natural original principles of safety of nuclear facilities, make them very attractive from the point of view of ecology and economy, and actually expand the resource base of already explored fields to infinity and repeatedly use fuel that has already been extracted and undergone initial processing’, Alexey Likhachev noted.
The main focus, as in all recent negotiations, was on ensuring safety of nuclear facilities. The both sides consider this task as an absolute priority. Alexey Likhachev and Rafael Grossi synchronised watches on the situation around the Zaporozhskaya NPP and the Kursk NPP. It was confirmed that, despite the known accents in the positions of the parties, Russia and the IAEA Secretariat work on these issues in parallel modes.
Joint work, including in the context of maintaining the IAEA permanent presence at the ZNPP site, will be continued.
