MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti commentator Tatyana Sinitsyna). - In one of presidentially encouraged efforts to realize "under-utilized and under-demanded opportunities of nuclear power," Russia is planning to build a large fast neutron nuclear facility in Sverdlovsk Region in the Urals.

Sodium-moderated fast neutron reactor (also known as "fast breeder" or "fast" reactor) technology is one of the sector's crucial for the future of energy in general and nuclear energy in particular as it is based on fuel that can be recycled after use.

"Physicists understand: without fast neutron technology, nuclear power has no future, it would be just a small episode in history, much of which the mankind is going to spend wondering how to dispose of the nuclear power industry it has created," said Yevgeny Velikhov, a famous Russian scientist and President of leading Russian nuclear research center Kurchatov Institute.

Fast neutron reactors, Russia's latest choice in its nuclear power strategy for the first half of the 21st century, is also the ever-first choice made in world's nuclear power. Leo Szilard, a Hungarian scientist, spoke of it back in the 1930s and got a patent in 1946.

When making the very first steps on nuclear power, scientists already knew where to go. Fast reactors produce recyclable fuel, which simultaneously yields more power and rids us of spent nuclear fuel and dreaded "nuclear waste." The uranium, plutonium, and other actinide elements taken out of fast reactors can be recycled for further use. No waste, no repositories, no costs, no environment and security risks.

In the early stage of nuclear development, Russia worked seriously on fast reactors, launching the still operational BN-600 at the Beloyarsk NPP in the Urals. However, later the emphasis was made on "conventional" water-moderated reactors that were easier to maintain and for that reason have dominated Russian and international nuclear power industry ever since - the number of fast reactors did not go beyond single digits. Until recently.

Now Russia is set firmly on track to develop commercial fast reactors.

"We need fast neutron reactors badly though they currently require more investment and produce more expensive power. For instance, to complete the new BN-800 will cost 46 billion rubles ($1.63 billion, or Euro 1.37 billion)," said Mikhail Solonin, a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and chief technology and innovations expert with OAO TVEL, Russia's nuclear fuel producer controlled by the Federal Agency for Nuclear Power.

"However, this is a necessary step to pass to produce competitive commercial reactors. Here we need to find a compromise between two crucial factors, safety and cost efficiency, and launch experimental commercial nuclear fuel recycle," he said.

Solonin said Beloyarsk NPP would be an ideal platform for the BN-800 and the next BN-1800 because the plant has sufficient expertise and highly skilled personnel. The new reactor will work on what experts call "a fuel that lasts forever," a mix of plutonium and uranium - the latter, importantly, can be depleted and in any case does not need to have much U-235. This unconventional fuel can be produced by Mayak, a nuclear plant just 90 miles away from the NPP's home city of Beloyarsk, and, when spent, reprocessed at RT-1, the factory near Mayak which currently disposes of the fuel taken from conventional VVER-440 reactors, nuclear-powered icebreakers and submarines, including decommissioned ones. This is, in fact, Russia's most advanced region in terms of fast neutron power technology.

Solonin said a full complex, with a BN-800 reactor and a new fuel cycle, is going to take at least eight years to build. In this timeframe, the BN-800 will replace the BN-600 to be decommissioned by then. The replacement, slightly larger than the old model, will ensure a 40% increase in thermal output and will be used for the time being as an experimental and demonstration platform, rather than a commercial source of energy. After the BN-800 teaches engineers all its lessons, another reactor will be built for commercial service.

The first 1 billion rubles ($35.46 million, or Euro 29.77 million) of the total 46-billion allocation have recently been earmarked for the project, and scientists hope businesses will invest as much as the government here as, Solonin touted, "fast reactors is really a sector of technology that can be rapidly developed and be commercially viable."

Another big issue is to reach out to the local public as people who have no relation to nuclear industry are rightfully alarmed about further "nuclearization" of the region. Radiation disasters, chief among them the 1986 Chernobyl tragedy, have led to strongly negative public perception of nuclear power.

In the Russian Urals, things might not be as bad as elsewhere, though, as the region has been specializing in nuclear power generation for 60 years now; many people here work on nuclear sites and know that nuclear industry means safety as well as high corporate culture, good pay, and strong legacy programs. Furthermore, Velikhov said, "the Chernobyl disaster was a lesson learnt to the highest extent." After Chernobyl, safety became the highest priority.

Solonin is also confident: "We have enough expertise on the physics of reactor operation, safety systems, and new materials to say firmly a new Chernobyl will never occur. Accidents in nuclear power are highly unlikely today, in any case less likely than accidents in mining, chemistry, and transportation." The great mistake, he said, is that "we seek where it is easy to seek, not where there is something to find."