Lrytas.lt asked Takuya Hattori, the president of the Japan Atomic Industry Forum (JAIF), who gave a speech on the future of the nuclear energy industry at the Atomexpo 2012 international forum in Moscow on Tuesday, about Lithuania's planned Visaginas nuclear power plant.
"Lithuania, Visaginas? This is a very important project not only for Hitachi," he said, when asked by Lrytas.lt what he thought about a statement made by a Rosatom official on Monday.
While speaking about the energy needs of the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and the entire Baltic Sea region, Sergey Boyarkin, the program director at Russia's state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom, expressed his surprise that Japan, which has stopped building single-loop nuclear reactors after the Fukushima disaster, offers them to foreign countries, in this case, Lithuania.
Hattori categorically denied such statements.
"It would be unfair to say that we are exporting technically unsafe technologies. Japan manufactures and exports only technologies of the highest safety level. We are highly interested in the success of Hitachi Corporation's project in Lithuania. Our country simply could not afford to make the slightest mistakes in this area," he said.
Third-generation, pressurized water reactors (PWR) are now the most common type of reactors in the world, with 271 in use. Rosatom's officials say that Hitachi manufactures and sells second-generation, single-loop boiling water reactors (BWR). Eighty-four such reactors are in operation in the world.
For Hitachi, the Visaginas project is a gateway to foreign markets and, if successful, could be followed by more orders. Therefore, the Japanese are ready to help Vilnius to obtain a significant part of loans under favorable terms, according to Lrytas.lt.
Atomexpo, the biggest atomic industry event in Russia, this year brought together about 2,000 delegates from around the world. The main theme of this year's forum is "Nuclear Power Industry After Fukushima: Operator's Perspective."
2012-06-06 08:45
Japanese hit back at Russians' remarks about Lithuanian nuclear plant project
Russian energy officials' remarks suggesting that a Japanese nuclear reactor that is planned to be built in Lithuania could be less safe than the most advanced Russian reactors are came as an unpleasant surprise to Japan's representatives, the Lrytas.lt portal reported on Tuesday.
„Hitachi“ / „Reuters“/„Scanpix“ nuotr.
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