Nature, Kacper Szulecki & Indra Overland 27 Feb 23
Abstract
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the possibility of reducing Europe's energy dependence on Russian resources has been hotly debated. The fossil fuel industries received most attention as European Union leaders first introduced gradual sanctions on Russian coal and later on oil and gas, while Russia responded with supply cuts. However, Russia's role as a major player in the global nuclear power sector has remained largely below the sanctions radar, despite dependencies on Russian nuclear technology, uranium supplies and handling of spent nuclear fuel. Here we analyse the state nuclear company Rosatom and its subsidiaries as tools of Russian energy statecraft. We map the company's global portfolio, then categorize countries where Russia is active according to the degree and intensity of dependence. We offer a taxonomy of long-term energy dependencies, highlighting specific security risks associated with each of them. We conclude that the war and Russia's actions in the energy sector will undermine Rosatom's position in Europe and damage its reputation as a reliable supplier, but its global standing may remain strong.
..................................................................Russia is the world's largest exporter of natural gas, second-largest exporter of oil and third-largest exporter of coal8. However, media coverage and political debates have generally omitted another sector where Russia is a major player and that is vital for Russia's global economic and diplomatic posture: nuclear energy. While the Russian shelling and takeover of Ukrainian nuclear power plants has caused an outcry, Russia's portfolio of foreign orders, including reactor construction, fuel provision and other services, spans 54 countries and is claimed by Rosatom to be worth more than US$139 billion over a ten year period9 and has thus far not been covered by Western sanctions. Although the financial figure is in all likelihood inflated, Russia's involvement in and use of nuclear energy as a tool of energy diplomacy deserves scrutiny.
In this Analysis, we present a dataset of all current and planned international engagements of the Russian nuclear energy supplier Rosatom and its subsidiaries AtomStroyExport and TVEL. The dataset includes information on the different types of agreement, business models, scales of investments, types of reactor being built or planned and their nameplate capacity. As a gauge of the level of dependency upon the Russian nuclear sector that is or will be brought about by these reactors, we registered their share of the future electricity supply in the countries where they are located or planned for construction. Because the degree of influence achieved through energy statecraft is conditioned by the character and level of (inter)dependence, we discuss the firmness of dependence of different client states, formulated as 'intensity.' Finally, we propose a categorization of dependency types (Methods).
Rosatom's rise, expansion and comparative advantages
Rosatom—the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation—is the direct heir to the Soviet Ministry of Atomic Energy, which was established in the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. Reorganized as a state corporation in 2007, Rosatom is fully owned by the Russian state, and the president of the Russian Federation determines the company's objectives10,11. Since its inception, Rosatom has become increasingly active in the international nuclear power market12,13 and has become a leading provider of key services12,14,15. Construction of as many as ten reactor units started between 2007 and 2017, and between 2009 and 2018, the company accounted for 23 of 31 orders placed and about a half of the units under construction worldwide11. Through its subsidiary TVEL, Rosatom also provides fuel supplies, controlling 38% of world's uranium conversion and 46% of uranium enrichment capacity16,17 in addition to decommissioning and waste disposal. In sum, Russia was the supplier in around half of all international agreements on nuclear power plant construction, reactor and fuel supply, decommissioning or waste between 2000 and 2015. Its main nuclear power competitors—China, France, Japan, Korea and the United States—accounted for another 40%, combined18.
................................................. Rosatom's main advantage lies in its capacity to be a 'one stop nuclear shop' for all needs, the only supplier providing an 'all-inclusive package'12. This comprises reactor construction know-how, training, support related to safety, non-proliferation regime requirements and flexible financing options, including government-sourced credit lines22. The company is also uniquely able to offload spent nuclear fuel from overseas customers.
The way Rosatom designs its projects also makes it a convenient partner for nuclear newcomers23,24. While details of contractual agreements vary from case to case, the developer takes care of the entire process until the plant is ready to use and can be handed over to local (Russian-trained) nuclear experts to operate. For that reason, nuclear energy can be considered by countries for which it was previously unattainable, especially in the Middle East25,26, sub-Saharan Africa27,28 and South America.29
Rosatom is also able to make special offers to strategically important partners, such as Turkey30,31. ........................................
Its comparative advantages as a supplier allowed Russia to launch a global campaign of nuclear energy diplomacy33 in which Rosatom and Russian government institutions such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs work in tandem. This potentially gives Russia the capacity to use the broad network of international projects it is involved in34 and the direct control over reactors and strategic energy infrastructure to exert political pressure and to project power globally35.
Minin and Vlček, having studied the behaviour of Rosatom and its relationship with the Russian state, argue that the company is primarily a profit-seeking entity with a high degree of autonomy and growing self-sufficiency15. According to Thomas, whatever its grandiose expectations, Rosatom could simply be unable to deliver all the projects that it has agreed to, let alone expand further13. On the other hand, Aalto et al. observe that 'potential foreign policy influence' by Russia was noted by Finnish and Hungarian opponents of collaboration with Rosatom33, while Jewell and colleagues argue that some nuclear sector dependencies display more pervasive energy security impacts, long-lasting and difficult to deal with (due to lack of flexibility) than those usually analysed by energy security experts in the petroleum sector18,36.
Here we consider Rosatom's potential as a tool for the Russian state and debate whether this constitutes a 'nuclear energy weapon' or simply a projection of soft-power diplomacy. We find that Russian nuclear energy statecraft can be seen as a spectrum between these two extremes, but that soft-power diplomacy creates dependencies that can be further expanded and exploited and thus should not be overlooked.
Analysing Rosatom's international activity
Our research, gathered in the dataset available in the Supplementary Data, indicates that upon Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Rosatom boasted as many as 73 different projects in 29 countries. The projects were at very different stages of development from power plants in operation; through construction of reactors ongoing, contracted, ordered or planned; to involvement in tenders, invitations to partnerships or officially published proposals. On top of that, Russian companies have bilateral agreements or memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with 13 countries for services or general joint development of nuclear energy.
Rosatom's projects and involvement have varied in ambition and cost—from India's Tarapur nuclear power plant (NPP) (US$700 million) and Iran's Bushehr-1 (US$850 million) to a gargantuan project in South Africa (US$76 billion) and those in Egypt (US$30 billion) and Turkey (US$20 billion). Finally, 13 countries have a variety of research-oriented agreements with Russian nuclear service providers related to nuclear research centres. Altogether, Russia's nuclear energy diplomacy has been formalized in 54 countries.
While this is impressive, looking into the details of these agreements (particularly the NPP construction projects) reveals a more modest level of international engagement. Many of the projects have been stuck at the planning stage for several years or are merely visions laid out in non-committal MoUs...............................................................
However, most cooperation and plans have not been cancelled, and even EU member states Bulgaria and Hungary have, as of January 2023, not cancelled their planned nuclear plants..........................................................................................................
Following the 2014 annexation of Crimea and particularly after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russian economic, political and energy influence has become a fundamental concern in European countries.42 In countries that plan to base their decarbonization efforts primarily or entirely on nuclear energy (that is, Hungary and Slovakia), the Russian NPP share of the electricity supply can underrepresent Russia's influence: dependencies on nuclear fuel imports from TVEL/Rosatom (which also continues to supply Bulgaria, Czechia and Finland and Poland's research reactor), combined with power-system inflexibility and overreliance on a single large nuclear power plant, exacerbates the vulnerability to supply disruptions..................................................
Egypt, Iran and Turkey are all nuclear newcomers, energy hungry and populous (with between 82 and 100 million inhabitants each). Such states are lucrative markets for low-carbon electricity development........................................................................................................................
The big question for the future is whether non-Western countries will also turn away from Russian nuclear power. Currently, many developing countries take a positive view of Russia and tilt towards its view of the conflict in Ukraine. Immediately after the invasion of Ukraine, seven of the 14 countries with high- or medium-cooperation levels in our analysis did not approve United Nations Resolution ES 11/1 condemning Russian aggression, and several of these (for example, Bangladesh, China, India, Iran) were categorized as 'neutral or Russia-leaning' shortly after the war began58. Over time, however, the interruption of energy supplies to the European Union may undermine the reputation of Russian energy companies as primarily economic actors independent of national security politics, also outside Europe. Non-Western perspectives on the war in Ukraine and the reliability of Russia and Russian technology may also change over time......................................................................................................................................................... more https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-023-01228-5
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