Nuclear energy for Nord Stream?
Russian power supplier Inter RAO UES wants to lay a power cable next to the projected Nord Stream gas pipeline. The cable is to export energy from a planned new nuclear power plant in Kaliningrad.
The 1220 km long underwater gas pipeline was originally planned to become a powerful alternative export route for Russian gas, linking Vyborg on the Baltic coast directly up with Greifswald on the German side. The pipeline is planned fuelled partly by gas from the Shtokman field in the Barents Sea. Now, however, the gas pipeline might be accompanied also by an electricity cable. According to newspaper Kommersant, power supplier Inter RAO UES is in negotiations with German partners about the laying of the cable. The capacity of the power cable will be 600-1000 MWh. The power will come from the Baltic NPP planned built in Kaliningrad by 2015-2016. According to newspaper Kommersant, Russia’s state nuclear power company Rosatom has long wanted to export electric power to Germany. The laying of the cable along the Nord Stream pipeline will be cheaper than laying a new line across the Baltic countries and Poland. The new cable for nuclear power exports will however hardly make the Nord Stream project more popular among already skeptical Nordic neighbors. Sweden is among the countries which remains highly negative towards the Russian-German gas project. The Nord Stream consortium might also not be easy to convince. In a press release, the company this week maintains that “it has no plans whatsoever to combine a power cable project with the Nord Stream project”.
