From nuclear to solar energy (Russian lighthouses)

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http://www.barentsobserver.com/from-nuclear-to-solar-energy.4533195-16149.html

From nuclear to solar energy

2008-12-09

The Norwegian-Russian project on replacing radioactive strontium batteries with solar panels in lighthouses along the White Sea and Barents Sea coast and islands is now completed. In 2009 the project might be adopted in the Baltic Sea.

All of the Northern Fleet hydrographical service’s 153 lighthouses along the White Sea and Barents Sea coast and islands, have now been modernized to use solar energy as power source, Russian TV company TV21 reports. The radioactive strontium batteries that used to supply these lighthouses with energy have been shipped to the Mayak reprocessing plant in Chelyabinsk, Siberia.

This project started seven years ago and has been conducted by Russian and Norwegian specialists with financial support from Norway of nearly 20 millions EUR. Finnmark County Governor, Gunnar Kjønnøy, and his Russian counterpart in Murmansk, Governor Yuri Yevdokmov have supervised the project.

In a recent meeting the governors and representatives from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Baltic Fleet discussed the possibility of extending the project to also include the Baltic Fleet hydrographical service’s lighthouses. This work is assumed to start next year.

Read more about the project here