Our correspondent spoke with B.Chadraa, the director of the Physics and Technology Institute of Science Academy. He said the public has positively received the president’s decree banning government officials from negotiating agreements about nuclear waste storage in Mongolia. He says the decree was appropriate to stop rumors from spreading.

But Chadraa also said Mongolia would benefit from nuclear power. With Mongolia’s abundant reserves of mineral resources, he said it makes sense to build a processing facility and nuclear power plant. He said such a project would help make Mongolia energy independent and reduce unemployment and poverty.

Chadraa noted that Mongolia has a shortage of energy, especially in the capital. Western aimags import energy from Russia, and southern aimags import energy from China.

B.Chadraa said it would take five years to build a fifth conventional power plant, but only two to build a nuclear power plant. As a leading proponent of nuclear energy and as a physicist, he said he would like a nuclear power plant to be built in the Gobi.