Local public hearings on the construction of a small-scale nuclear power plant (SSNPP) will be held in Uzbekistanб said Kasym Tokhtakhunov, Advisor to the Director of the Atomic Energy Agency (Uzatom), during the Astana - Moscow - Tashkent video conference call on the development of nuclear energy in Central Asia.

“As for a referendum, let's put it this way... according to our Constitution, there is no need to hold a referendum on these matters, but we will naturally hold local public hearings,” he said.

In the process of building New Uzbekistan, the country does not intend to remain a “raw materials appendage of the global division of labor”; we aim to process local raw materials in order to supply value-added products, the specialist said. As an example, he pointed to cotton, which began to be processed and textiles and yarn sold abroad, thanks to which foreign exchange earnings increased 4 times and 100 thousand jobs were created.

We aim to do the same with uranium. “Why not further process uranium further and obtain added products? The president set this task for us. Therefore, the issue of nuclear energy is justified for us, and we believe that Uzbekistan will confidently develop nuclear energy - not only large, but also small-module [nuclear power plants],” said Kasym Tokhtakhunov, who is also a senior lecturer at the National Research Nuclear University MEPI in Tashkent.

He underscored that small modular reactors were more preferable for Uzbekistan today.

“They are quite flexible, their operating mode is 120%. Considering that we are very strongly, widely introducing renewable energy, solar energy, and we have quite a lot of issues with coverage and power balancing, our calculations show that small modules can very successfully, very harmoniously enter the operating mode of the power system,” he said.

According to him, the choice of Rosatom as the general contractor was due to a “purely pragmatic approach.”

“We conducted an analysis: what is happening in the world, what companies operate, how they operate. And, naturally, our choice is only in favor of Rosatom. There was a purely technical, purely pragmatic approach here,” he concluded.