Bolivia signs contract with Russia to create nuclear centre

Russia’s State-owned Rosatom nuclear energy group is to establish a Nuclear Research and Technology Centre (NRTC) in Bolivia. The contract was signed in Vienna, Austria, on Tuesday, between Rosatom group company State Specialised Design Institute (SSDI) and the Bolivian Nuclear Energy Agency (ABEN is its acronym in Spanish). The project will cost more than $300-million. The NRTC will be centred on a 200kW research reactor and will be located in the city of El Alto, which lies at an altitude of 4 100 m above sea level. This will make the new reactor the highest in the world. (In comparison, South Africa’s SAFARI-1 research reactor has an output of 20 MW and lies a little more than 1 200 m above sea level.) “We offer Bolivia not just the construction of the highest-altitude nuclear science centre in the world; we offer our partners cutting-edge technologies,” affirmed Rosatom Director General Alexey Likhachev. “The implementation of this project will allow Bolivia to become a regional leader in nuclear research.” Once the centre is operational, it will allow Bolivia to widely apply radiation technologies in many areas, including agriculture, industry and medicine.