Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, which is being built with Russian participation, is Turkey’s first nuclear power plant. It is expected that after the commissioning of the four units, which will be equipped with advanced Russian VVER-1200 reactors, the plant will produce around 35 billion kilowatt hours per year and cover up to 10% of Turkey’s electricity needs. In addition, Akkuyu is the first plant in the world to be implemented according to the “Build-Own-Operate” model. That is, the Akkuyu nuclear company created by Russia in Turkey will not only design and build the plant, but also be engaged in its maintenance and subsequent dismantling. The total cost of the project is estimated at $20 billion. The estimated lifetime of the nuclear power plant is 60 years with the possibility of extension for another 20 years. The construction of the nuclear power plant, noted in Moscow and Ankara, will give impetus to the development of the region, provide jobs and access to a stable source of clean electricity for the Turkish people for many years to come.
Ankara wanted to build a nuclear power plant near the city of Gulnar in the distant 60s of the last century
Ankara wanted to build a nuclear power plant near the city of Gulnar in the distant 60s of the last century. However, Turkey started the practical implementation of the project only in 2010, when a bilateral agreement on the construction of the station was signed between Moscow and Ankara. Along with the preparation of the most efficient and safest construction projects, the education and training of future personnel of the power plant was organized on the basis of the National Nuclear Research University “MEPhI” and the University St. Petersburg Polytechnic (SPbPU). Initially, the competition was advertised for 50 vacancies, but later 250 Turkish students were trained. And in total, nearly ten thousand applicants submitted course applications.
Project implementation has not always gone smoothly. The construction was challenged by environmental activists, who used the argument that the station was created in a seismically dangerous area, although the designers had already built into the project the ability to withstand even powerful earthquakes. “Environmentalists” actively worked with the local population, causing protests against the nuclear power plant. Headlines about “radioactive strawberries” and “mollusk extinction” sounded in the Western press. Western politicians, unhappy with the development of cooperation between Russia and Turkey, raised the question of whether the construction of a nuclear power plant would help Ankara obtain nuclear weapons. Turkey has been constantly singled out over security issues, they say it’s not worth building a nuclear power plant in the politically unstable region of the Middle East. At the same time, they forget to specify who exactly sowed this instability with their “Arab Spring” projects. The most difficult period was in 2015, when relations between Russia and Turkey soured after the Turkish Air Force shot down a Russian Su-24 on the Syrian-Turkish border. The construction of “Akkuyu” has been suspended. But Moscow and Ankara managed to overcome all the contradictions, and in 2016 the project resumed. Moreover, Erdogan then said that Turkey would not abandon the Russian nuclear power plant, despite the strongest pressure from the European Union.
On April 3, 2018, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan launched the construction of the station in a solemn ceremony. And then the events followed one another as in a kaleidoscope. In 2019, the active construction of the first block began, in 2020 – the second, in 2021 – the third, in 2022 – the fourth. Very soon, the nuclear reactor of the first unit “will begin to live.” This expression is used by nuclear scientists when the reactor reaches the minimum controllable power level, after which it is possible to increase its power and accelerate the turbines to produce electricity.
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