Rosatom plans to build a nuclear power plant for Gazprom specifically to reduce its carbon footprint and ensure gas supplies to Europe
The European Union is seriously concerned about greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, so they require their suppliers to reduce their carbon footprint. Because starting in 2026, a cross-border carbon tax will be introduced in Europe for imported goods with a high carbon footprint.
Yes, while this tax has not been extended to gas, but in Russia they have already thought about this issue, and Rosatom proposed reduce the carbon footprint of Gazprom and replace gas turbines with electric drives, which will receive electricity from the new NUCLEAR POWER STATION.
Why does Gazprom need this nuclear power plant at all
For the first time, this issue of transferring Gazprom to an updated method of transporting fuel was raised back in November 2021 at a meeting of the technical council of Rosatom. The thing is that for the most part compressor units in Gazprom operate on gas turbines.
Yes, it is this approach that provides complete autonomy for installations from external power sources. But as you already understood, it is far from the most environmentally friendly option, which has a rather strong carbon footprint.
But if you replace gas with electricity from nuclear power plants, you can significantly reduce this most notorious carbon footprint and carry out a repair program less often.
As was noted in the Kommersant publication, in addition to the nuclear power plant, it will most likely be built in Western Siberia, it will also be necessary to create an associated power grid infrastructure. After all, according to the Skolkovo Moscow School of Management, the gas transmission equipment owned by Gazprom consumes about 40 GW of power.
Of course, so far there is simply no technical information on this project, but given that the Siberian energy system is in surplus and is allocated for reserve up to 30% of the total capacity, then, most likely, the new nuclear power plant will not supply energy to the grid, but will be focused exclusively on infrastructure Gazprom.
Well, given the importance of the facility, to ensure reliability, it will need backup sources, which will remain precisely gas turbines.
Well, let's see if our gas giant will have its own nuclear power plant, which, in fact, will eventually allow serious reduce the carbon footprint by 99% and what then (well or not) new obstacles will appear for the smooth operation of a Russian company in Europe.
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