Nuclear energy in Turkey

Currently (as of December 2017) there are no commercially operated nuclear power plants in Turkey . The Akkuyu nuclear power plant has been under construction since April 2015 .

history

Between 1956 and 1982 the state Atom Enerjisi Komisyonu Genel Sekreterliği ( General Secretariat of the Atomic Energy Commission ) was responsible for nuclear power matters in Turkey . This agency was restructured in 1982, renamed Türkiye Atom Enerjisi Kurumu (TAEK, Turkish Atomic Energy Agency ) and incorporated into the Prime Minister's Office of Turkey .

The first nuclear power plant, which was put into operation on May 27, 1962, was the research reactor TR-1 (output 1 MW). This facility was part of the Çekmece nuclear research and education center in the western Istanbul district of Küçükçekmece .

After investigations in the 1970s, the 'Atom Enerjisi Komisyonu' approved Akkuyu in the province of Mersin as the first location for a nuclear power plant in 1976 . The Sinop location was also considered in the early 1980s . Up until the year 2000 there were many negotiations with foreign companies and many tenders for the construction of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant . All projects were unsuccessful for various reasons. As a result, it was initially decided in July 2000 not to build it. On May 8, 2004, the Turkish Minister for Energy and Natural Resources announced to Guler that the planning of nuclear power plants in Turkey would start again.

The AKP government, which has ruled alone since the parliamentary elections on November 3, 2002 (it also won the July 2007 , June 2011 and June 2015 elections ), planned to build three NPPs:

one in Mersin- Akkuyu (built and operated by a Russian company),
one in Sinop and
one probably in the Turkish part of Thrace ( Eastern Thrace ).

The Russian nuclear power plant manufacturer Atomstroiexport made its first offers for the construction of a nuclear power plant in 2008 . Atomstroiexport was the only company still interested in the project; the other companies that participated in the tender to build the Akkuyu nuclear power plant had all canceled. The nuclear power plant should have an output between 3,000 and 5,000 MW. Atomstroiexport is one of the many Russian companies belonging to the Federal Agency for Atomic Energy of Russia (Rosatom for short). This agency is subordinate to the Russian government.

On June 7, 2011, almost two years before the first groundbreaking ceremony for the Akkuyu NPP, the Turkish energy minister Taner Yıldız said verbatim to journalists: “We are planning to close our nuclear power plants for the year 2071. On the 1000th anniversary of the battle of Manzikert . ”Yıldız announced a possible nuclear phase-out date long before construction of the first nuclear power plant began.

The amendment to the statutes relating to licenses in the electricity market, which came into force on July 29, 2011, favors companies that aim to build a nuclear power plant.

Turkish energy policy has long relied on Iran and Russia. When Iran failed to deliver the contractually agreed amount of gas for a whole week in January 2008, it made Turkey aware of how dependent its growing economy and population are.

In the official reports from the IAEA, no information on nuclear power plants in Turkey can be found to date (as of November 2012). Turkey is considered an earthquake prone area . Turkey and Russia signed an agreement on the Turkish Stream pipeline in October 2016 .

Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant

Akkuyu is located directly on the Mediterranean Sea , approx. 100 km southwest of the provincial capital Mersin , in the district of Gülnar . The next small town about 4 km to the north is Büyükeceli. The place is near a meeting point of several tectonic plates : ( Anatolian plate , Arabian plate , African plate and Eurasian plate ). This is why this project has received a lot of criticism. In July 1998, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck Akkuyu; its epicenter was only 100 km from Akkuyu. At that time the construction of a 1,300 MW nuclear reactor was planned.

On May 12, 2010, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan signed an agreement in Ankara to build the Akkuyu nuclear power plant . On December 2, 2010, the treaty was ratified by the Russian side. For this project, the Russian company founded a joint stock company in Turkey on December 13, 2010 with the name “Akkuyu NGS Elektrik Üretim A.Ş.”. This company is responsible for the construction, operation, decommissioning and dismantling of the NPP Akkuyu.

On March 16, 2011 - a few days after the Fukushima nuclear disaster - Erdoğan and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin agreed in Moscow to start construction on the Akkuyu project. The site was given to the Russian company for this construction project. It alone bears the construction costs of an estimated US $ 20 billion and will operate the plant alone; a later partnership of the Turkish state or Turkish companies was not excluded. All four reactors are to be commissioned by 2022. The output per reactor is 1200 MW, the total energy generation is expected to amount to 35 billion kWh annually.

The subsoil investigations are to be carried out from June 2011 to mid-2013. The groundbreaking ceremony for the KKW-Akkuyu was set for mid-2013. However, the company's CEO Alexander Superfin announced on October 24, 2013 that construction could start in January 2016 and, if everything goes well, the start of electricity generation for the first reactor in mid-2020.

From September 2011, Russia will be awarding scholarships to Turkish students for this project for a total of 6.5 years at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute at Moscow University . These scholarships are to be awarded to 50 students annually. Thus, within 6 years, a total of 300 Turkish students should begin this course in Moscow. After graduation, depending on the industry, there is a 1 to 3 year internship, followed by an obligation for 13 years at the Akkuyu NPP.

On August 7, 2011, around 700 mostly local activists took part in a demonstration against the construction of the Akkuyu NPP and briefly occupied the building site.

In July 2012, the Russian Ambassador in Ankara, Vladimir Ivanovski, announced that the construction costs would be closer to USD 25 billion and that the first of the four reactors would be commissioned in 2019.

Sinop nuclear power plant

For the construction of the nuclear power plant in Sinop , negotiations with Japanese companies took place for a long time, but they dropped out of this project after the nuclear disaster in Fukushima . As a result, negotiations were only conducted with companies from South Korea , and later, after Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's state visit to China in April 2012 , with Chinese companies. On April 20, 2012, an agreement was signed in Istanbul with the Canadian company Candu Energy Inc. (Candu) on the possible construction of a CANDU reactor in Sinop.

On October 29, 2013, however, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe signed a contract for the construction of the nuclear power plant in Sinop by Japanese companies in Istanbul .

On April 1, 2015, the treaty between Turkey and Japan for the construction of the second nuclear power plant in Sinop was ratified by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM). The Japanese company Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHE) Itochu Corp. is responsible for the construction. responsible in cooperation with the French Areva . The planned construction costs are $ 22 billion. The reactors with a total output of 4,800 MW are of the Atmea type , which are to be produced jointly by MHE and the French Areva. In December 2018, the Japanese companies withdrew from the project for financial reasons.