The impact of the Rosenergoatom Joint-Stock Company’s (a part of the Electric power division of the Rosatom State Corporation) production is little; however, the company sticks to the production operation control at their plants, subsidiaries and affiliates with regard to the environmental safety, having a set of measures to facilitate these activities. In 2019, the Company allocated 4.304 billion rubles for such projects.

This budget includes but is not limited to the expenses for protection of atmospheric air and prevention of climate change, conservation of biodiversity and protection of natural areas, radiation safety, sewage collection and purification, waste management, research and development activities related to cutting negative human impact, as well as other areas related to environment protection.

In 2019, the operating NPPs have seen a number of environment protection activities, those being: the upgrade of the ventilation systems at the Balakovo NPP, the upgrade of the chemical water treatment system at the Beloyarsk NPP, the upgrade of pumps and pumping facilities at the Kalinin NPP, the upgrade of water and wastewater treatment facility at the Kola NPP and the Leningrad NPP’s health care center. Among other things was that around 500 thousand young grass carps and 1.4 million young wild carps were reproduced and released to the Rostov NPP water pond.

‘The Rosenergoatom Joint-Stock Company’s production environment control system is being constantly reviewed and enhanced on an annual basis, which is confirmed by constant improvements in the NPP’s impact on the environment. For many years, the nuclear power plants have only been accounting for less than 0.01% of pollutants released into the environment by all manufacturing companies in the Russian Federation’, T. Palitskaya, the chief expert of the Radiation safety, nuclear materials, radioactive substances and waste review and control, and environment protection department at the Rosenergoatom Joint-Stock Company, said.

The amount of pollutants released into the atmosphere does not simply stay below the acceptable value – they are well below the limits set by the environment protection authorities. In 2019, their amount was 1,070 tons, which is only 16.86% of the permitted amount. And the majority of these emissions are coming not from the nuclear power plants per se but rather the auxiliary production facilities: auxiliary boilers, health care facility boilers and those switched on to conduct scheduled trials of the backup diesel generator stations.

It is essential that all Russian NPPs operate strictly within the standards set forth in the environment protection regulations of the Russian Federation. In 2019, the certified environment management systems of the Company’s headquarters and running NPPs have successfully completed the inspection (re-certification) audits and confirmed their effective operation and continuous improvement as well as full compliance with the national and international environment standards.