Journalists visit the priority site for the construction of nuclear power plants and Tuzkan Lake

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- On 4 September 2019, a press tour was held for Uzbek bloggers, journalists, specialists from energy and related industries and other interested parties to the selected priority site for the construction of a nuclear power plant near Tuzkan Lake, Forish district, Jizzakh region.

During the press tour, the participants got acquainted with the prospects of building a nuclear power plant in Uzbekistan, received information about the second stage of engineering and survey work being carried out at the construction site.

At the moment, specialists from the Russian enterprise Atomstroyexport and the State Unitary Enterprise UzGASHKLITI are conducting geophysical and seismological work on this territory. The research results will be studied, and on their basis the development of the technical design of the nuclear power plant will continue. Work has begun on the development of an engineering survey program for a technical project, as well as the mobilization of personnel and equipment.

“We have already issued a report of 18 volumes of 250 pages each. For each of the IAEA’s most stringent requirements, 1,000 arguments have been given. The IAEA lists 15 “unfavorable factors” in the presence of which the construction of a nuclear power plant is in question. So our current platform, which is very rare in the world, is completely free of 14 of them. The 15th factor - groundwater at a distance of 6-12 meters from the surface, can easily be solved by engineering, ” Yuldash Magrupov, Director General of the State Unitary Enterprise “State Design Research Institute of Engineering Surveys in Construction, Geoinformatics and Urban Planning Cadastre ”, said.

As part of the press tour, journalists and bloggers visited Lake Tuzkan, which is part of the Aydar-Arnasay lake system.

Engineering surveys at the priority site are planned to be completed before the end of 2019, the results of which will form the basis of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). At the same time, according to the work schedule, by the end of 2020 the EIA will be developed and put up for public hearings. Based on the results of the above engineering and survey works, relevant materials will be sent to the state regulatory body for nuclear and radiation safety - the State Industrial Safety Committee to obtain permission for the site.

In the near future, as part of a program to familiarize the media and the public with reforms in the energy sector of Uzbekistan, a press tour will be held at the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan and the Atomic Technology Information Center of the Uzatom Agency.