ASTANA: Kazakhstan’s atomic energy agency announced on Saturday that the state-owned China National Nuclear firm (CNCC) and Russia’s state nuclear firm Rosatom have been selected to head different consortiums to construct the nation’s first nuclear power facilities.
Since 1999, when the BN-350 reactor on the Caspian Sea coast was shut down, the 20 million-person country, which is wealthy in gas and oil, has lacked the ability to generate nuclear power.
Although Kazakhstan is one of the largest producers of uranium in the world, the majority of its electricity is currently generated by coal-powered plants, with a small number of hydroelectric plants and the expanding renewable energy industry serving as supplements.
