A major international nuclear industry event, the two-day ATOMEXPO 2024 International Forum opened on March 25, 2024 in the Science and Arts Park Sirius of the Sochi’s Sirius Federal Territory, supported by the Rosatom State Corporation.
This is the 13th edition of the Forum, bringing together over 4.5 thousand participants from 75 countries. Its key theme in 2024 is generation IV reactor technologies and Russia’s leadership in this area.
As usual, ATOMEXPO gathered representatives of public authorities, major global nuclear power players, and leading international experts. Among the event’s high-level flagship guests are Deputy Director General of IAEA Mikhail Chudakov, Burundian Minister of Hydraulics, Energy and Mines Ibrahim Uwizeye, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó, and Serbian Minister of Health Dr Danica Grujičić.
The opening ceremony was attended, among others, by Rosatom’s Director General Alexey Likhachev, Director General of IAEA Rafael Mariano Grossi, Director General of the World Nuclear Association (WNA) Sama Bilbao y León.
At the opening, Alexey Likhachev said, “ATOMEXPO 2024 is the first carbon-free forum, powered by green sources only. We hope that this approach will become a good tradition for all major events.”
“Today’s event,” he continued, “has gathered a record-high number of participants, international guests and countries represented at the Forum by their delegations. For the first time, we are welcoming Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Iraq. We highlight the special, preferential participation of African representatives in our Forum, as it is Africa that harbours a huge potential of nuclear technology development today.” The head of Rosatom concluded by noting that “the Forum’s motto is ‘Clean energy: creating the future together,’ ‘the future’ and ‘together’ being the key words. Together, we will discuss generation IV, thermonuclear fusion, and other technologies. Only together with all the countries can we build a clean-power future for our planet.”
In his speech, Rafael Mariano Grossi noted that the Forum has become an important milestone in the global atomic event calendar: “ATOMEXPO is very important in the context of exploring innovative power solutions and discussing the future of the nuclear energy sector.” He added, “Rosatom has been developing innovative technologies: small module reactors, gen 3+ and 4 reactors. Three years ago, together we poured concrete in the foundation of the world’s first fast reactor with BREST-OD-300 actuator. The International Atomic Energy Agency will take part in such projects. We celebrate these future-bound technologies being launched now.”
After the opening ceremony, a live broadcast was held from the city of Seversk in the Tomsk Region, which hosts the Breakthrough Project, the world’s first gen IV power complex. The facility has confirmed on air that its fabrication/refabrication module is ready to be commissioned for nuclear fuel production.
As usual, ATOMEXPO is expected to feature ceremonies of signing of meaningful partnership agreements. Throughout the Forum’s history, there have been over 500 of them, with a total value of USD 63 bln.