Kostroma Nuclear Power Plant

Kostroma Nuclear Power Plant is a proposed, but as-yet non-existent nuclear power plant that was to be erected in the Buysky District, of Kostroma Oblast in Russia.

In the mid-1970s within the erstwhile Soviet Union, it was decided by the Soviet Council of Ministers under chairman Alexei Kosygin that a nuclear power plant would be constructed in Kostroma, using two RBMKP-2400 generation II reactor cores.^[1]

Construction began in 1979, with several design changes made throughout; in the 1980s, Soviet planners decided to build two RBMK-1500 reactors instead. In the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, the plant's design was again re-drawn to use VVER-1000 reactors.^[2] All construction came to a complete stop in 1990, not long before the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the '90s, a proposal was made to build two VPBER-600 reactors (variants of the VVER-640 design)^{[citation needed]}, but the proposal never reached production stage.

On 8 December 1996, further construction was rejected by referendum with 87% voting against. By 1999, the Kostroma Regional Court and later Supreme Court of the Russian Federation ruled the Kostroma Oblast Duma decision to hold a referendum (date 25 April 1996, No. 278) illegal.^{[citation needed]}

Per resolution No. 1574 of the Kostroma Oblast Duma, date 1 March 2007, all resolutions preventing construction were cancelled and, therefore, construction was to resume in earnest; on-site switchgear had already been installed that could handle up to 500kV.^{[citation needed]}

On 14 October 2008, Kostroma's regional governor was presented with a Declaration of Intent to invest in the construction of two power units, signed by Rosatom State Corporation's then General Director, Sergey Kiriyenko.^[3] Public hearings held in 2009 discussed the potential environmental impact for power units No. 1 and 2 of the plant. Construction of the plant was also referenced by a government scheme to improve energy infrastructure within Russia, approved for construction until the year 2030 by order of the Russian government.^{[citation needed]}

It was decided that the plant would be built in stages: between 2016 and 2020, two power units would be built using the VVER-1200 design with a capacity of 2300MW. Later, two additional units would have been installed for a total capacity of 4600MW.^[4]

By April 2011, Rosatom had received a license from Russian energy regulator Rostekhnadzor, authorising construction. In the end, Rosatom canceled all construction plans.^[5]

To this day, the Kostroma Nuclear Power Plant has never been built.

• Kostroma nuclear plant discussed on Rosenergoatom website (Russian language page)
• Publication by Kirill Rubankov, titled Атомная радость ("Atomic Bliss") (Russian language page) // «Expert Online» /15 окт 2008