The aim of our action is to attract public attention to the important and positive tendency that recently began to show growth of social attractiveness of nuclear energy. There comes a time of “nuclear renaissance”. Nuclear energy in Russia and all over the world leaves the state of stagnation, the Chernobyl syndrome is being overcome and joint coordinated actions of the state, the public and the nuclear community will to a great extent determine the future of this high technology capable of making critical contribution to sustainable development of the humanity.

The current situation in global power consumption is characterized by its unevenness in different regions of the world. Two thirds of the power are consumed in developed industrial countries with the population of a little over 1 billion people while one third of energy production falls on the remaining four billions of the planet’s population. At the same time it is known that power supply for vital activity of people is the key factor for their well-being. Therefore it is evident that in the 21st century the world community will make effort directed at the levelling of power consumption in different regions of the world.

Through participating in the traditional Maxi-Marathon here in Russia we express support to the initiatives that you put forward in the UN at the Millennium Summit in September 2000 and that are directed at development of nuclear energy as the basis of creating an energy system capable to ensure sustainable, economically profitable and socially acceptable development of the society and improvement of all sphere of human activity in the 21st century.

A number of unbiased factors indicate necessity and possibility of further introduction of new nuclear power production facilities that will lead to growth of technological potential and normalization of ecological situation in industrial regions. The increase of the carbonic acid gas concentration in the atmosphere determines the limit to raising power production by use of organic fuel.

A compact form of wastes and absence of products of burning release are typical for nuclear sources. The total mass of nuclear wastes is millions of times less than the mass of wastes from organic fuel burning. It is an undoubted advantage of nuclear energy.

While use of organic fuel in power production technologies continues it is basically impossible to solve the problem of CO2 release.

Thus under its normal operation nuclear power production has undoubted ecological advantages.

The growth of energy consumption has emerged in the world including Russia and its shortage in some regions becomes an actual national problem. Within this context one major advantage of nuclear plants is independence of their location from sources of fuel supply. Construction of NPPs can solve energy problems of remote regions such as Primorie, which has been suffering from the lack of heat and electric power for several years.

As practice shows it is most efficient to carry out large scale research and development in support of creating new nuclear energy of the 21st century within the framework of international cooperation, which consolidates resources of state participants. Thus the role and the responsibility of international organizations and most of all the IAEA grow. We see coordination of research in the sphere of nuclear energy and consolidation of efforts of the Agency’s state members in the field of innovation atomic power engineering development as the key element of such cooperation.

Our appeal to you is called forth by the active position that Russia has in the field of nuclear energy development both inside the country and in the international scene and we hope that in the course of the forthcoming Russia’s chairmanship of the G-8 in 2006 it will be able to add impulse to cooperation on development of the perspective technologies of the future atomic energy.

May 19-21, 2005, Leningradskaya NPP – Saint Petersburg