October 24, 2024
Jennet Charyyeva and Yanliang Pan
The following is an excerpt from Carnegie Politika.
More than 70 percent of Kazakhs have voted in favor of construction of a new nuclear power plant at a tightly controlled referendum on October 6. The government’s decision to put this issue to a national vote highlights its controversial nature: only three referendums have been held in the history of post-Soviet Kazakhstan.
Despite being the world’s leading producer of natural uranium (responsible for 43 percent of global production in 2022), Kazakhstan is traditionally cautious about nuclear power. The hesitation stems in no small part from the country’s history as the Soviet Union’s nuclear testing ground: Kazakhstan’s Semipalatinsk region endured over 450 nuclear tests that caused innumerable health problems for locals and badly impacted environmental diversity. Today, some still lack confidence in the government’s ability to guarantee nuclear safety. Concerns persist over potential corruption, regulatory failures, excessive foreign debt, and dependence on other countries for critical infrastructure.
Nevertheless, public opinion is at best peripheral to Astana’s actual decisionmaking. For Kazakhstan, the real question when it comes to nuclear power has almost always been that of “how” rather than “whether.” In fact, ever since 1997, when Energy Minister Vladimir Shkolnik proposed the construction of a nuclear power plant, successive national energy strategies have formalized that ambition. Banal obstacles like a lack of financing and unfavorable terms of intellectual property transfer have been far more significant than public opposition in blocking the government’s previous nuclear power development initiatives.
Continue reading at Carnegie Politika.
