MURMANSK - A seminar entitled “Renewable Energy of the Kola Peninsula: Possibilities and Perspectives” and organised by Bellona’s Murmansk office introduced yesterday a new report on possibilities for developing renewable energy instead of nuclear power in Russia’s Arctic North.
The report entitled “Prospects for Development of Non-conventional and Renewable Sources of Energy on the Kola Peninsula” was written by researchers from the Kola Scientific Centre RAN. The seminar also included discussions of Bellona’s position paper "Renewable Energy on the Kola Peninsula."
Bellona Murmansk officials also held a press conference to discuss the prerequisites and possibilities of cooperation toward the development of renewable energy, and the authors of the report discussed the potential of renewable energy in the region.
“The Murmansk Region is one of the regions in Russia where a shift to renewable energy sources is most important,” said Bellona Murmansk’s coordinator of energy projects, Nina Lesikhina.
“This is due in the first place to the presence of aged and dangerous nuclear reactors at the Kola Nuclear Powe Plant, and the growing dependence on oil and gas, the refining of which in Arctic conditions increases ecological risks by many times.”
Representatives of the Kola Scientific Centre and representatives of the Murmansk Regional Administration spoke at the seminar on their assessment of perspectives of developing renewable energy. The Russian wind energy company Veterenergo provided a presentation of their experience using wind energy.
The Bellona Foundation spoke about the ideas and experiene with organising an energy forum as a basis for business, government and societal cooperation on clean energy issues.
At the end of the seminar a meeting of the working group on the development of planning work in the sphere of alternative and renewable energy in the Murmansk Region took place.
