Март 2010 г.

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• Moderniser au plus vite ? Oui, mais...
• Internationaliser la science russe pour la sauver
• Russian Scientists Invent Pedal-Powered Submarine
• Woolly mammoths resurfacing in Siberia
• Were short warm periods typical for transitions between interglacial and glacial epochs?
• Global warming? Scientists find methane source in Arctic seas.
• Soyouz sous les tropiques, année zéro
• Precision modification of nanotopography of polymer surface with ultraviolet radiation
• EDF étudie un partenariat nucléaire avec le russe Rosatom
• Scientific glasnost
• La Russie consacrera 37 milliards de dollars aux sciences en 2010
• Once a science and technology powerhouse, Russia prowess wanes
• Des chercheurs mettent en garde contre l'impact des fuites de méthane sur la planиte
• Russia anxious to position itself in the vanguard of climate change solutions
• Achèteriez-vous une centrale nucléaire russe?
• Russia's Nuclear Industry Seeks to Profit From Alternative Fuels
• Russia's top weatherman's blow to climate change lobby as he says winter in Siberia may be COLDEST on record
• DNA identifies new ancient human dubbed "X-woman"
• Russian Launches Baikal Petition

Журнал Nature опубликовал редакционную статью, посвященную состоянию российской науки. Основой для статьи послужило февральское интервью онлайн-изданию "Газета.Ru" президента РАН Юрия Осипова, вызвавшее бурную дискуссию. В частности, Осипов подверг сомнению значимость такого критерия, как индекс цитируемости и необходимость публикации исследований российских ученых в зарубежных журналах.
В статье говорится, что российская наука уже отстает от мирового уровня, и ее репутация будет только ухудшаться, если страна не сможет принять правила международных исследований и останется в изоляции от внешнего мира.

Ever since the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, Russian leaders have been vowing to transform their old-line, industrial society into a modern, knowledge-based economy driven by innovative science and technology. The current Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, has repeated that ambition frequently - not least as a way to overcome Russia's dependence on oil and gas exports. Unfortunately, that transformation continues to be hobbled by outdated attitudes at the top of Russia's academic hierarchy.
A small, but telling example came to light last month when the popular online newspaper gazeta.ru published an interview with Yuri Osipov, president of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Pressed by the reporter about the very low citation rate for articles published in Russian-language science journals, Osipov dismissed the relevance of citation indices, questioned the need for Russian scientists to publish in foreign journals and said that any top-level specialist "will also study Russian and read papers in Russian".
From anyone else, such a response might be dismissed as an off-hand comment, perhaps reflecting a bit of stung national pride. But Osipov is head of the largest and most powerful research organization in Russia, the employer of around 50,000 scientists in more than 400 research institutes, and the publisher of some 150 Russian-language research journals. What he says and thinks has a big effect on Russian science. Moreover, the undercurrent of scientific nationalism in his remarks is widely shared by other senior members of the academic establishment - many of whom are products of Soviet times, when Russian science was pretty much an all-Russian affair (see Nature 449, 524-527, and 528-529; 2007).
Such parochialism is hopelessly at odds with any dreams of a knowledge-based economy. The knowledge in question flows from basic research and technological innovation, which have long since moved beyond being just national endeavours. If nothing else, international scrutiny and feedback are essential for winnowing the good ideas from the dead ends. And, as Osipov himself acknowledged in the interview, English, not Russian, is the international language of science.
Russian science is already lagging behind that of other nations. According to an analysis published in January by Thomson Reuters, Russia produced just 2.6% of the research papers published between 2004 and 2008 and indexed by the firm - fewer than China (8.4%) and India (2.9%) and only slightly more than the Netherlands (2.5%). Moreover, Russia's publication output has remained almost flat since 1981, even as the output of nations such as India, Brazil and China was exploding. The situation is so bleak that in October last year, 185 Russian expatriate scientists signed an open letter to Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warning of an imminent collapse of Russian science unless something was done to improve the inadequate funding, strategic planning and teaching of science.
Self-imposed scientific isolationism can only make matters worse - and accelerate the already large emigration of Russian scientists seeking better opportunities in the West. And those who remain in Russia are also starting to recognize the danger. Many young researchers now eagerly collaborate with Western groups. And many older Russian professors continue to produce excellent science under often difficult conditions. They know very well what a grave disservice they would do to their students by asking them to publish in low-profile journals for the supposed sake of national pride. The answer isn't to close Russia in, but to open it up.

В 2010 году российское правительство собирается потратить на науку, инновационные проекты и федеральные целевые программы 1,1 трлн руб.

Le gouvernement russe dépensera 1,1 mille milliards de roubles (37 milliards de dollars américains) sur les sciences fondamentales et appliquées cette année, a annoncé mercredi le Premier ministre Vladimir Poutine.
En 2010, environ 1,1 mille milliards de roubles seront alloués pour développer les sciences fondamentales et appliquées, l'éducation supérieure, les services médicaux de pointe et les programmes fédéraux spécifiques comme l'aviation et l'espace, a déclaré M. Poutine lors d'une réunion de la commission gouvernementale sur les technologies de pointe et les innovations.
"C'est une somme très importante", a-t-il noté.
Il y a 4000 organisations scientifiques et six universités d'Etat des sciences en Russie, mais "la quantité ne se transforme pas souvent en qualité", a expliqué M. Poutine cité par l'agence de presse Itar-Tass.
M. Poutine a appelé les instituts de recherche à dépenser les fonds existants de façon plus pertinente et plus décente pour que les effets désirés se produisent.
Il a également suggéré que la priorité soit donnée aux centres scientifiques et éducatifs dotés d'avantages compétitifs.
L'économie russe, qui dépend fortement des exportations de pétrole et de gaz naturel, a été durement touchée par la crise économique mondiale. Le président Dmitri Medvedev a établi en mai dernier une commission présidentielle sur la modernisation économique et le développement technologique, dans le but d'aider l'économie à devenir innovante.

The Christian Science Monitor считает, что былое влияние российской науки неуклонно падает. Недостаток средств и общественного признания приводит к тому, что немногие из молодых людей выбирают для себя научную карьеру.

The once-vaunted Russia science powerhouse is following the same downhill path of Soviet-era athletic prowess. Lack of funds and plummeting social recognition mean that few young people pursue science careers. Moscow.
Nikolai Podorvanyuk works by day as a scientist at Moscow's prestigious Institute of Astronomy and moonlights as an editor at an online newspaper by night. If you guessed that the science job is his big breadwinner, you'd be wrong. He lives on his journalist's income.
"For me the most important thing is my career in astronomy, but unfortunately it doesn't pay much," says Mr. Podorvanyuk.
A recent comparison between Podorvanyuk's institute and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg found that the Russian organization had twice the staff but received one-sixth the funding of its German counterpart.
"If you take any scientific institute in Russia and measure it against a comparable foreign one, I'm sure you'll get a similar picture," Podorvanyuk says. "The core of our problems is chronic underfunding."
Russia's once-vaunted scientific establishment looks to be going the same way as its Soviet-era athletic prowess: downhill fast, that is, and for much the same reasons.
"Russia has been a leader in scientific research and intellectual thinking across Europe and the world for so long," says a new report by the global think tank Thomson-Reuters, "that it comes not only as a surprise but a shock to see that it has a small and dwindling share of world activity as well as real attrition of its core strengths. Russia's research base has a problem, and it shows little sign of a solution."
Though most scientists cite lack of funding as the key problem, others say the crisis runs much deeper and may not be solved even if government science budgets were restored to Soviet-era levels.
Lack of money and motivation
Russian state financing for science rose when Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was president to a post-Soviet high of about $2 billion in 2008, but has since fallen back slightly. That's barely 2 percent of what the United States government spends annually to support scientific work, complained the vice president of Russia's official Academy of Sciences, Gennady Mesyats, in an interview published on the academy's website this month.
"It's not just about money, it's also about motivation," says Andrei Ionin, a scientific philosopher, who works in the space industry. "The profession of scientist is not prestigious anymore, and the government does not define scientific tasks that would attract talented people.
"Money matters," he says, "but social recognition is also a very important factor in choosing a career. And that's what's missing these days."
One 2006 survey cited in the Thomson-Reuters report found that just 1.6 percent of students viewed science as a worthwhile career. "Out of 15 of my fellow postgraduates, only five are still in science," says Podorvanyuk. "The pressures are such that either you have to leave science or go abroad to make a living. I'm still working in the area I love, but I have to hold down two jobs to do it [and] my research suffers."
Youths uninterested in science
The average age of Russian scientists now hovers at over 50, says Andrei Petrov, chair of President Dmitri Medvedev's council to promote greater youth participation in science. Mr. Medvedev has made "modernization," including boosting scientific research and innovation, the signature theme of his presidency.
"Young people are gradually trickling back into science, and salaries have grown," says Mr. Petrov, "but now we urgently need to see investment in scientific infrastructure like laboratories and equipment."
He says about one-third of Russian scientists are under 40, while half are over 50. "That needs to be reversed," he says. "The president is offering special programs, grants, and prizes for young scientists. Things are stabilizing."
Kremlin looks West for reforms
The Kremlin is also pressing for reform of the science establishment, including sharp staff cuts, and shifting the workload away from the country's hundreds of Soviet-era research institutes to universities and corporations, as is common in the West.
The government needs to take a stronger hand, some argue, not only in funding but also organizing scientific research. Centralized control over scientific research, which was a great strength of the Soviet system, has evaporated, says Yevgeny Velikhov, president of the Kurchatov Institute, Russia's leading nuclear science center. "We have no counterpart to the Department of Energy," the cabinet-level agency that coordinates and funds a wide range of US scientific research, he says.
The Kremlin has recently taken steps to amalgamate some major sectors, such as thermonuclear and particle physics research, Mr. Velikhov says. Although Russia was a pioneer in nuclear-fusion research, it has been reduced to being just one of seven partners in the huge International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project, based in France.
Russia's once mighty space program, which gave the world Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, still has a few grand plans. But for now it ekes out a living by working as a taxicab to the International Space Station and playing host to high-paying "space tourists."

Группа ученых из России, Швеции и США впервые доказала, что дно Северного Ледовитого океана является очень мощным источником метана в атмосфере. Слой вечной мерзлоты на дне дестабилизирован, и количество выделяющегося из арктического шельфа Восточной Сибири метана сопоставимо с количеством, выделяемым всеми остальными мировыми океанами.

Une équipe internationale de chercheurs vient de faire une découverte alarmante: une section des fonds marins de l'océan Arctique contenant du méthane congelé montre des signes d'instabilité et de suintement de méthane, un puissant gaz à effet de serre. Les résultats de l'étude ont récemment été publiés dans la revue Science.
Des chercheurs de Russie, de Suède et des États-Unis ont observé des perforations au niveau du pergélisol sous-marin de l'Arctique dans le plateau arctique de Sibérie orientale, qui laissent échapper des quantités importantes de méthane dans l'atmosphère. La libération de méthane stocké dans le plateau continental, si faible qu'elle soit, pourrait aggraver le réchauffement climatique.
"La quantité de méthane qui s'échappe actuellement du plateau arctique de Sibérie orientale est comparable à celle qui s'échappe de l'ensemble des océans du monde", explique l'auteur principale de l'étude, le Dr Natalia Shakhova, du centre international de recherche arctique (IARC) de l'université d'Alaska à Fairbanks, aux États-Unis. "Le pergélisol sous-marin est en train de perdre ses caractéristiques de couvercle imperméable", avertit-elle.
Des deux, lequel est le pire? Le dioxyde de carbone (CO2) ou le méthane? Selon les experts, c'est le méthane qui est le plus dangereux, car il est 30 fois plus puissant que le CO2. Les chercheurs pensent que le matériau organique contenant du carbone se décompose et libère lentement du méthane lorsqu'il commence à fondre dans le permafrost. Ainsi, ces libérations sont plus importantes que celles résultant de la décomposition, et elles sont encore plus soudaines et inattendues.
Le plateau arctique de Sibérie orientale, riche en méthane, s'étend sur plus de 2 millions de kilomètres carrés, et est considéré comme la principale source de méthane de l'hémisphère nord. Une analyse des résultats de l'étude montre que le plateau émet 7 téragrammes (1 téragramme équivaut à 1,1 million de tonnes) de méthane par an, ce qui équivaut aux émissions totales provenant des océans du monde.
"Notre préoccupation est que le pergélisol sous-marin a déjà montré des signes de déstabilisation", explique Natalia Shakhova. "Si cette déstabilisation s'accroît, les émissions de méthane pourraient ne pas être de l'ordre du million de tonnes, mais beaucoup plus importantes."
Selon la scientifique, les archives géologiques terrestres indiquent des variances au niveau des concentrations de méthane atmosphérique: près de 0,3 à 0,4 parties par million (ppm) pendant les périodes froides et de 0,6 à 0,7 ppm pendant les périodes chaudes. Les concentrations moyennes de méthane dans l'Arctique s'élèvent à près de 1,85 ppm, un record pour ces 400 000 dernières années. Le plus déconcertant est que le plateau arctique de Sibérie orientale enregistre des concentrations encore plus élevées.
Les chercheurs expliquent que le plateau ne fait que 50 mètres de profondeur, et ne libère pas de méthane au cours des périodes les plus froides; en effet, il conserve son état de plaine côtière gelée. Mais à mesure que la Terre se réchauffe, le niveau de la mer augmente, et risque d'ensevelir le plateau sous l'eau de mer. Les experts expliquent que l'eau de mer est de 12 à 15°C plus chaude que la température de l'air moyenne.
"On pensait que l'eau de mer maintiendrait gelé le pergélisol du plateau arctique de la Sibérie orientale", commente le Dr Shakhova. "Personne n'avait tenu compte de cette immense zone."
Des études antérieures sur la Sibérie avaient indiqué que la libération du méthane empêchait la fonte du pergélisol. Mais grâce à des études antérieures menées par le co-auteur de l'étude, le Dr Igor Semiletov, qui a rejoint l'IARC en tant que visiteur scientifique de l'institut océanologique du Pacifique (Far Eastern Branch de l'Académie russe des sciences), des scientifiques étaient parvenus dans les années 1990 à comprendre que le méthane émis depuis des sources terrestres diminuait à des latitudes plus élevées. Néanmoins, ces études n'ont pas été plus loin que la côte.
Aussi les Dr Shakhova et Semiletov, ainsi que leurs collègues, ont-ils décidé de pousser leurs recherches au large des côtes de 2003 à 2008. Leurs travaux ont permis de déterminer les taux de méthane dans tout l'écosystème et ils ont constaté que le paysage marin abritait une centaine de points chauds. Ils ont également découvert que le méthane piégé sous et dans la banquise était dissous dans l'eau mais s'échappait aussi dans l'atmosphère.
"La libération dans l'atmosphère de seulement un pour cent du méthane que l'on suppose stocké dans les dépôts d'hydrate de faible profondeur pourrait multiplier l'effet actuel du méthane atmosphérique par trois ou quatre", ajoute-t-elle. "Les conséquences climatiques d'un tel événement sont difficiles à prévoir."  

В Дипломатической академии российского МИДа прошел круглый стол "Итоги Копенгагенской конференции ООН по изменению климата: перспективы России". Участники проанализировали прошедшую в декабре конференцию, обсудили текущую позицию России и попытались спрогнозировать ход переговорного процесса на ближайшее время. Предполагается более активная роль России в климатических переговорах, а также запуск киотских механизмов в нашей стране. Кремль продолжает выступать за объединение двух переговорных процессов (по Киотскому протоколу и по Рамочной Конвенции) в один. Впрочем, по мнению некоторых экспертов, создать новое соглашение по проблеме изменения климата вряд ли удастся раньше 2013 года.

MOSCOW - A round-table discussion held in earlier this month by the Russian foreign ministry's Diplomatic Academy on the current status and future of the global climate debate has apparently forged new goals and guideposts for the Russian climate policy. Talking points on the agenda included a more dynamic role for Moscow to play in climate negotiations and the expected launch of the Kyoto mechanisms on domestic grounds. The Kremlin keeps pushing for a unification of the two ongoing negotiation processes - on the Kyoto Protocol and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change - but, some experts warn, a new legally binding and comprehensive climate change agreement may not become a reality before 2013.
Gathered for the round-table discussion at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs - the event was entitled "Results of the UN Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change: Russia's Prospects" - were over forty experts in climate change and the ongoing global debate on the climate crisis. The conversation centred on attempts to work out a cooler-headed assessment of the outcome of the December 2009 summit - a three-month rebound period may have helped recover from what many saw as quite an upsetting debacle - discuss Moscow's current position on the issues, and try to anticipate what possible scenarios climate negotiations may take in the near future.
Despite the shared disappointment over the results of the Copenhagen conference - Vitaly Matsarsky, a representative of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat, noted the negotiations had been so taxing as to call to mind the "worst moments of the Cold War" - the participants were trying to cheer each other up by unearthing what positive aspects they could in the agreement that had finally been reached in Copenhagen, to concentrate on future efforts.
Thinking positive
Alexander Bedritsky, the climate adviser to the Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, was one of those who tried to focus on the upsides of the agreement. He noted that the Copenhagen summit had become the first UN climate change conference that had featured appearances by heads of state and top government officials. His was also a rather optimistic assessment of the resulting Copenhagen Accord as one "acceptable for everyone": The new document, he said, was "in line with the ideology of the plan of action worked out in Bali." According to Bedritsky, both the Kyoto Protocol and the Copenhagen agreement are now there for climate debate participants to help formulate objectives to continue the work, yet the latter offers little besides the opening clause to serve as a basis for a new, post-Kyoto climate deal. Medvedev's point man for climate said the new accord "has an assembly kit, but no design."
Yet, Bedritsky underscored, over seventy nations have already outlined their intentions in Appendices 1 and 2 to the agreement, and thirty more countries are willing to support the agreement and continue working in the framework provided by it.
At the same time, the official Russian position remains rooted in Moscow's opinion that the two tracks along which negotiations are currently proceeding should be joined into one comprehensive line of climate bargaining. For now, the UN is dividing its attention between two parallel negotiation routes - one that is focussed on the Kyoto Protocol and another that is focussed on the UNFCCC - with the United States' refusal to ratify the protocol being the main reason for that fork in the road. According to Bedritsky, "it's clear that, like before, nothing will come out of this scenario - we need to radically solve the issue of uniting the two processes, because everything that could be done to improve the mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol, has been done already."
Russia's role
Russia's place in the ongoing climate debate was another issue under discussion at the round table. Tatiana Avdeyeva from the Diplomatic Academy suggested Russia needed to play a bigger role in climate negotiations. "It's good that we now have a climate adviser to the president, it would now be nice to have an interagency body, as well, which would work with climate issues," Avdeyeva said. She also proposed to look beyond the ties of traditional partnerships Russia has been holding onto and seek more climate cooperation with China, India, and other transition economy countries.
Similarly, Bedritsky added, Russian science must start regaining the global leadership role it used to enjoy before, and Russia needs to enhance its presence in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - the expert body established by the UN for the assessment of climate change.
Moscow also needs to begin realisation of the Kyoto Protocol mechanisms in Russia, Bedritsky said, including cap and trade and joint implementation projects, and start participating in initiatives aimed at providing financial support for climate activities in developing countries, both in purely financial matters and at the level of strategy development and decision-making.
One of Bedritsky's other suggestions was for Russia to initiate adaptation and equipment delivery projects for scientific observations and research into climate change processes on the territory of former Soviet republics, as well as to create a unified emission quota fund shared together with the Ukraine and Belarus. Selling these quotas could go toward acquiring necessary climate technologies. According to Bedritsky, the Security Council of the Russian Federation is soon to hold a meeting to discuss Russia's Climate Doctrine, with the Ministry of Economic Development preparing additional recommendations on the implementation of the doctrine, ways to further decrease climate burden, and on potential opportunities for modernisation - one of the major domestic issues advanced by the current Russian administration.
The idea that kept threading throughout the round-table discussion was the notion of pushing Russia further ahead to the frontlines of everything related to climate change - from science and technology to policies and funding mechanisms - and doing that at the very top level of the global debate, too, those upper tiers that involve strategic decision-making, defining global political priorities, and, in general, those that would allow for a better recognition of Russia's efforts on the global climate scene.
The desire to see Russia "in the centre of climate developments" was expressed by quite a number of participants. For instance, the Foreign Ministry's Avdeyeva spoke of European countries planning to introduce environmental taxes and subsidies and suggested Russia should keep a close watch over global environmental initiatives and make decisions in accordance with how this situation develops further. Bedritsky expressed concerns over the United States possibly going ahead with adopting measures that would curb the import of goods that fall short of certain climate standards, referring to such measures as protectionist and at odds with a number of articles in the UNFCCC.
The onion layers of negotiations
Other points of discussion included the significance of the climate debate process as such - especially, in light of the Copenhagen fiasco. UNFCCC representative Matsarsky, while acknowledging the "declining morale" in the UNFCCC ranks, said that climate negotiations have at the same time long "outgrown" the subject of climate per se.
Matsarsky compared the subject of climate and climate change with an onion, where the upper layer would be science, but right underneath it - because science necessarily spurs ahead discussions about how to cut emissions via modernisation in the energy economy and energy use - is the layer where an attempt is being made to revamp the entire global economy through energy policies. Further on still, there is the layer of economics, which in turn covers a layer of politics, and deeper still is the layer of law, where terminology issues are being settled - like the one dealing with the precise interpretation of the term "legally binding."
Matsarsky also said an additional negotiation session will be held by the UNFCCC in Bonn, Germany, between April 9 and 11, adding that members of the so-called BASIC group of large emerging economies - Brazil, India, China, and South Africa - have proposed to hold at least another five preliminary meetings before parties to UNFCCC convene next for a conference in Cancun, Mexico, late this year. He is, however, pessimistic about the Mexico summit being able to break the latest negative trend and lead to the signing of a new global agreement.
"There will definitely be no agreement before 2013," Matsarsky said.

Для развития ядерного сектора внутри страны Россия в этом году выделит 6 млрд долларов и привлечет иностранных партнеров. На внешнем рынке основные надежды "Росатома" связаны с Индией, Китаем, Турцией и Вьетнамом.

Vladimir Poutine veut prendre 30% du marché mondial du nucléaire civil. En pratique, la concurrence avec les occidentaux comme Areva reste limitée ... géographiquement.
Le Premier Ministre russe Vladimir Poutine a déclaré jeudi soir que l'objectif de RosAtom, le géant nucléaire russe, était d'atteindre 30% du marché mondial contre 16% aujourd'hui. Un effort qui démarre à domicile, avec un investissement public de 6 milliards de dollars cette année dans le secteur, impliquant des alliances avec des partenaires étrangers comme Toshiba, EDF, Alstom et Siemens.
Côté construction, 26 centrales seront construites en Russie. A l'international, RosAtom fonde ses espoirs principalement sur les marchés Indien, chinois, turc et vietnamien, où il a déjà avancé ses pions.
A l'heure actuelle, le monopole d'Etat russe construit 5 réacteurs dans 3 centrales (Busher en Iran, Koudankoulam en Inde et Belene en Bulgarie). La construction de deux réacteurs supplémentaires devrait commencer cette année à la centrale chinoise de Tianvan. Et Vladimir Poutine revient tout juste d'Inde où il a vendu pas moins de 12 réacteurs supplémentaires " dans les prochaines années ".
Selon l'expert Sergueï Kondratiev, la Russie est à deux doigts de prendre entièrement le futur marché vietnamien. " Ce n'est que le premier pas vers le très prometteur marché sud-asiatique, comprenant la Thaïlande, la Malaisie et l'Indonésie, qui envisagent tous de se doter de centrales nucléaires " poursuit l'expert.
Offensive sur tous les fronts
Dans l'enrichissement d'uranium, RosAtom détient déjà 40% du marché mondial et 17% des livraisons de combustible nucléaire aux centrales civiles. Moscou a complètement repris à Westinghouse le marché du carburant nucléaire destiné aux centrales de fabrication soviétique situées dans les pays de l'ancien bloc de l'Est.
" Nous avançons simultanément sur tous les fronts : la livraison de combustible destiné aux réacteurs occidentaux, la construction de nos centrales dans des pays jusqu'ici vierges de nucléaire, la commercialisation de nos turbines et l'échange de technologies ", se félicite Kirill Komarov, directeur général d'AtomEnergoProm, filiale civile de RosAtom.
Terres réservées
Sur le papier, RosAtom est un concurrent à part entière des constructeurs occidentaux. "Ce sont les Russes qui ont, en ce moment, le plus grand nombre de réacteurs en chantier dans le monde", souligne un expert français. Mais, en pratique, les marchés des uns et des autres restent différents.
Les Russes restent cantonnés dans leurs zones d'influence politique traditionnelles et ne s'aventurent pas sur les marchés ouest-européens et américains. Si la concurrence réelle grandit, c'est plutôt sous l'effet des incursions des occidentaux sur leurs ex-terres réservées, comme en Europe de l'Est.
Actuellement, Areva et Toshiba-Westinghouse sont en concurrence avec RosAtom pour un projet en République Tchéque. Au Moyen-Orient et en Asie, en revanche, les Russes avancent leurs pions ... comme leurs concurrents occidentaux. "A Abu Dahbi, ils ont été éliminés au premier tour. Mais l'Egypte regarde aujourd'hui leur offre", explique un connaisseur du secteur.
Sûreté moins sophistiquée
Côté sûreté, le réacteur russe VVER (une technologie complètement différente de celle utilisée naguère pour la funeste centrale de Tchernobyl), de taille plus modeste que l'EPR français (1.000 MW), joue pratiquement dans la même cour. "Il comporte des élements de sécurité appartenant à la 3ème génération et d'autres le rattachant davantage à la 2ème génération, mais les Russes affirment construire désormais des élements capables de résister aux chutes d'avion", selon un expert. Ce qui conduirait le VVER à faire jeu égal avec l'EPR.
Alliance stratégique
Côté prix, le VVER est un peu moins cher. A cause de "la différence de coût de la main d'oeuvre entre la Russie et la France ou le Japon, mais pas du design", selon l'expert. Au final, "la différence de prix avec l'EPR, par exemple, n'est pas décisive", veut croire ce spécialiste français. Pour leur conquête de la planète, en dehors de leurs terres d'élection, les Russes comptent sur leur alliance stratégique avec l'allemand Siemens. Ce partenariat est pour l'heure bloqué par la justice dans le cadre de l'arbitrage du divorce entre Siemens et Areva. Mais, surtout, nul ne connnait les futurs contours de cette alliance qui pourrait changer la donne.

Совместное предприятие "Росатома" и частной электроэнергетической компании намерено к 2019 году создать экспериментальный образец компактного атомного реактора. Однако норвежская экологическая организация Bellona Foundation считает такие реакторы опасными, поскольку они охлаждаются не водой, а свинцовым расплавом, и в случае его замерзания получается не поддающаяся переработке специфическая смесь свинца, стали и радиоактивных отходов.
Подобная технология использовалась на советских подлодках; сейчас испорченные реакторы хранятся на военно-морских базах в российской Арктике, изрядно раздражая соседнюю Норвегию.

MOSCOW - Russia's nuclear industry has profited handsomely from the world's interest in alternatives to fossil fuels. But at least one environmental group is saying the latest Russian effort to capitalize on the green reputation of nuclear power - marketing designs for old Soviet nuclear submarine engines - is potentially dangerous.
The Russian industry is not alone in pushing the idea that the next generation of nuclear reactors should be shrunken, having more in common with the small power plants on submarines than the sprawling, panoramic installations of today.
The kind of marine reactors the Russians are promoting, though, also happened to create a byproduct that no one knows how to handle: spent fuel that is being stored at naval yards in the Russian Arctic, angering neighboring Norway.
Spent nuclear fuel is usually removed from a reactor and stored apart, in a pool of water. But the Soviet submarine model a Moscow company is trying to commercialize often ended with the fuel and the reactor frozen in one piece, and stored as such awaiting a time when an engineering solution will be devised to process the novel type of waste.
Moreover, the technology caused a number of mechanical accidents when it was used inside Soviet submarines, from the 1970s until the early 1990s.
But the same quality - packing a good punch in a small package - that appealed to the Soviet admirals is now being marketed as the latest in green technology.
As countries like China are racing ahead in wind energy and solar-cell manufacturing, Russia's focus has been nuclear.
Kirill Danilenko, the director of the Russian company Akme Engineering, said during an interview that nuclear power could be safely miniaturized for civilian use, with no more of a meltdown risk at a small plant than at a larger one. He said it was his vision that small reactors would become so common that utilities could use them to "build power plants like Lego sets."
The promise of miniature reactors powering homes, offices and schools is still years from being realized. The first Russian design, a pontoon-mounted reactor designed to be floated into harbors in energy-hungry developing countries, is already being built. But most promoters expect small reactors to begin operating only at the end of the decade.
The plans are going ahead here and elsewhere in the face of criticism that a diffuse nuclear infrastructure - the idea that midsize cities, for example, could have their own small reactor - is inherently risky.
But once the science is perfected, such reactors are potentially far less costly to build per unit of electricity generated than traditional nuclear power plants. This is no small matter, as upfront capital expenses form the largest cost of nuclear power, skewing its competitiveness with coal.
One solution to lower capital expenses is the tried-and-true economics of serial production. Reactor cores, like Ford cars, would be rolled off an assembly line, then shipped to the site of a plant. They could be used separately or as modules for a more powerful generator. This is only possible, however, if a reactor is small enough to fit on a railroad car.
Coincidentally, for other reasons, miniaturization was a cornerstone of submarine reactor design for half a century.
Russia is not alone in efforts to shrink reactors, with the goal of making nuclear power more affordable.
American companies are promoting nine designs for small reactors, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade group in Washington. And the International Atomic Energy Agency, which oversees civilian nuclear power, has estimated global demand for small nuclear reactors to reach 500 to 1,000 reactors by 2040. The category is defined as reactors making less than 300 megawatts of electricity, or the amount needed for 300,000 homes in a developed country like the United States. That is roughly a quarter of the energy output of big reactors.
The little guys have other advantages, though. They would be small enough, for example, to fit the existing steam generating equipment in old coal plants, making it easy to swap nuclear for coal. And small reactors have at least one nonproliferation benefit over their larger cousins: they can be loaded with fuel in the factory, reducing the need to ship fuel separately.
Some models are very tiny. One, for example, would be small enough to fit into a shipping container and would be trucked from site to site, like a diesel generator, with the distinction it would only need to be refueled once every seven years or so.
The Russian company's name, Akme, stands for atomic complex for small and medium energy and the company sometimes renders its name in English as Acme, though executives say they intended no reference to the cartoon company known for making improbable devices. Its goal is to produce, by 2019, a prototype of a miniature, 100-megawatt nuclear reactor small enough to fit into a typical backyard.
The company founded in December is a joint venture between Rosatom, the state nuclear power company, and a private electricity company owned by the Kremlin-connected oligarch Oleg V. Deripaska. It has $500 million in start-up capital, and one of its mini reactors will probably cost about $100 million.
The design it chose is peculiar for being cooled not with water but a molten lead alloy. In fact, the Soviet Union was the only country to deploy liquid metal reactors at sea. Introduced in the 1970s, they packed enough power to propel submarines more than 45 miles, or 72 kilometers, an hour under water. In fact, they were so powerful they compelled NATO to design an entirely new class of torpedo just to have a hope of hitting the new submarines, known as the Alfa Class.
But this Cold War design is not without its drawbacks. A Norwegian environmental group and authority on nuclear waste in the Arctic, the Bellona Foundation, says the lead alloy coolant tended to freeze in emergencies. Then, the reactor became an inaccessible block of lead, steel and waste.
The group documented an accidental freezing of the core on one submarine, K-123, in the early 1980s after an emergency shutdown in the Kara Sea. The vessel limped back to base. The only way to repair it, though, was to cut out the reactor segment with a blowtorch, a job that took nine years.
The former Russian naval captain working for Bellona who revealed these and other details of reactor failures in a report in the 1990s was put on trial for revealing state secrets.
Today, hardened liquid metal reactor cores litter the Arctic. While small, they still weigh hundreds of tons. No facility exists to melt out the lead alloy, which is itself lethally toxic, and extract the spent fuel rods. They remain an unsolved legacy of the Soviet submarine program; several are stored at a naval yard in Gremikha, on the Arctic Sea near Norway, according to Bellona.
The product can hardly be called green, Igor Kudrik, a researcher at Bellona, said by telephone.
The Russian nuclear industry, in its eagerness to capitalize on the booming global demand for nuclear power, including new applications like small reactors, has dusted off unsafe designs, Mr. Kudrik said. "They haven't come up with anything new," he said.
A spokeswoman for Akme said the company could not comment on military waste. Company executives said the commercial design would have to compete on safety, as well as economics, and that passive safety features would be built into the product. Anna Kudryavtseva, a vice president, said the nonmilitary version of the liquid metal reactor would be "maximally safe even in not very capable hands."

Глава Росгидромета Александр Фролов сообщил, что зима 2009-2010 годов стала одной из самых суровых в европейской части России за 30 с лишним лет. В Западной Сибири средняя температура составила -23,2 градуса по Цельсию - рекорд за последние 40 лет. При этом 39 дней температура была ниже -30 градусов
Профессор Аркадий Тишков, заместитель директора Географического института РАН, отметил, что в реальности в Сибири и во всем мире происходит похолодание - такова нынешняя фаза циклических изменений климата.

In a new blow to the climate change lobby, Russia's top weatherman today announced that the winter now drawing to a close in Siberia may turn out to be the coldest on record. 
"The winter of 2009-10 was one of the most severe in European part of Russia for more than 30 years, and in Siberia it was perhaps the record breaking coldest ever," said Dr Alexander Frolov, head of state meteorological service Rosgidromet.
Statistics are still being analysed in detail, but it is known that in western Siberia the mean temperature was minus 23.2C, with more colder days than in previous years.
Some 63 days were colder than minus 25C and 39 days below minus 30C.
For this part of Siberia, this represents the coldest conditions in 40 years and the second harshest winter in 110 years.
Equivalent statistics for colder eastern Siberia have not been issued yet.
The coldest recorded temperature in the recent winter is believed to have been minus 57.4C degrees in Oymyakon on 20 January.
The remote town in eastern Siberia is the coldest inhabited community in the world.
"When we say that this winter in Siberia was record breaking, we are aware that temperatures on some days of other years may have gone lower, but in the most recent winter the substantial cold was staying longer than usual and over larger regions than usual," said Dmitry Kiktev, deputy head of Rosgidromet.
"There were periods of so-called "monotonous cold" when the weather was less diverse, and the cold remained strong and stable to record levels."
Mr Frolov also offered bad news for Russians hoping for a speedy respite from the long winter.
"We can officially say that beginning of the spring in Russia is postponed for another seven to 10 days," he warned.
The Urals and Siberia would continue to face 'winter-like temperatures' well into April, while European Russia would be below average, he said.
Climate change adherents say the planet is warming due to man-made factors but Russian expert Professor Arkady Tishkov said yesterday that Siberia and the world are in fact getting colder.
"From a scientific point of view, talk about increasing average temperatures on earth of several degrees are absurd," he said. "Of course we can't say that global warming is a myth and falsification. In many regions of planet the temperature is higher than expected because of human impact. But the climate system of the planet is changing according to different cycles - from several years to thousand of years. From the scientific point of view, in terms of large scale climate cycles, we are in a period of cooling. The last three years of low temperatures in Siberia, the Arctic and number of Russia mountainous regions prove that, as does the recovery of ice in the Arctic Ocean and the absence of warming signs in Siberia."
Mr Tishkov, deputy head of the Geography Institute at Russian Academy of Science, said: "What we have been watching recently is comparatively fast changes of climate to warming, but within the framework of an overall long-term period of cooling. This is a proven scientific fact. The recent warming - and we are talking tenths of a degree at most - is caused by human activity, like forest elimination, the changing of landscapes. The greenhouse gases so much discussed now do not in fact play big role. We have to remember that all the impact of industrial enterprises in Russia cannot be compared with one volcano eruption on our planet."
On the latest Siberian statistics, Mr Kiktev said: "This winter does not prove that global warming is a myth, just as recent warm winters do not prove it does exist. These are just small peaks in the climate process. What they show, if anything, we will be able to judge in tens of years from now."

Журнал Nature опубликовал результаты генетических исследований древних останков человека, найденных в Денисовой пещере на Алтае. Оказалось, что 30-48 тыс. лет назад в Сибири обитал совершенно неизвестный науке вид людей, отличавшийся как от людей современного типа, так и от неандертальцев.

Scientists have identified a previously unknown type of ancient human through analysis of DNA from a finger bone unearthed in a Siberian cave.
The extinct "hominin" (human-like creature) lived in Central Asia between 48,000 and 30,000 years ago.
An international team has sequenced genetic material from the fossil showing that it is distinct from that of Neanderthals and modern humans. Details of the find, dubbed "X-woman", have been published in Nature journal.
Ornaments were found in the same ground layer as the finger bone, including a bracelet.
Professor Chris Stringer, human origins researcher at London's Natural History Museum, called the discovery "a very exciting development. This new DNA work provides an entirely new way of looking at the still poorly-understood evolution of humans in central and eastern Asia."
The discovery raises the intriguing possibility that three forms of human - Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and the species represented by X-woman - could have met each other and interacted in southern Siberia. The tiny fragment of bone from a fifth finger was uncovered by archaeologists working at Denisova Cave in Siberia's Altai Mountains in 2008.
An international team of researchers extracted mitochondrial DNA from the bone and compared the genetic sequence with those from modern humans and Neanderthals.
Origin unknown
Mitochondrial DNA comes from the cell's powerhouses and is passed down the maternal line only.
The analysis carried out by Johannes Krause from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and colleagues revealed the human from Denisova last shared a common ancestor with modern humans and Neanderthals about one million years ago.
This is known as the divergence date; essentially, when this human's ancestors split away from the line that eventually led to Neanderthals and ourselves.
The Neanderthal and modern human evolutionary lines diverged much later, around 500,000 years ago. This shows that the individual from Denisova is the representative of a previously unknown human lineage that derives from a hitherto unrecognised migration out of Africa. "Whoever carried this mitochondrial genome out of Africa about a million years ago is some new creature that has not been on our radar screens so far," said co-author Professor Svante Paabo, also from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
The divergence date of one million years is too young for the Denisova hominin to have been a descendent of Homo erectus, which moved out of Africa into Asia some two million years ago.
And it is too old to be a descendent of Homo heidelbergensis, another ancient human thought to have originated around 650,000 years ago. However, for now, the researchers have steered away from describing the specimen as a new species.
Dr Krause said the ground layer in which the Denisova hominin fragment was found contain tools which are similar to those made by modern humans in Europe.
Slice of time
"We have ornaments, there is a bracelet, so there are several elements in the layers that are usually associated with modern human archaeology," he told BBC News.
"That's quite interesting, but of course, it is hard to prove that the bone is strongly associated to this archaeology, because it is possible that bones could have moved within the site.
"We are also not sure how exactly the excavation was done. It could have come from a deeper layer, so that's hard to say." Professor Clive Finlayson, director of the Gibraltar Museum, said the find presented a number of questions, such as to what extent culture could continue to be used as a proxy for different prehistoric human groups.
Referring to his research on Neanderthals and modern humans in southern Iberia, he told BBC News: "The assumption is that when one group - the moderns - arrives the other group disappears. Here you have a very clear example of co-existence for long periods.
"Where is the rule that says you can have only one species in an area? Especially if they're at low density... the implications are big."
The research contributes to a more complex picture that has been emerging of humankind during the Late Pleistocene, the period when modern humans left Africa and started to colonise the rest of the world.
Professor Finlayson has previously argued: "A time slice at a point in the late Pleistocene would reveal a range of human populations spread across parts of Africa, Eurasia and Oceania.
"Some would have been genetically linked to each other, behaving as sub-species, while the more extreme populations may well have behaved as good species with minimal or no interbreeding."
It was long known that modern humans overlapped with Neanderthals in Europe, apparently for more than 10,000 years. But in 2004, researchers discovered that a dwarf species of human, dubbed "The Hobbit", was living on the Indonesian island of Flores until 12,000 years ago - long after modern humans had colonised the region.
Difficult classification
Neanderthals appear to have been living at Okladnikov Cave in the Altai Mountains some 40,000 years ago. And a team led by Professor Anatoli Derevianko, from the Russian Academy of Sciences, has also found evidence of a modern human presence in the region at around the same time.
Professor Stringer commented: "Another intriguing question is whether there might have been overlap and interaction between not only Neanderthals and early moderns in Asia, but also, now, between either of those lineages and this newly-recognised one.
"The distinctiveness of the mitochondrial DNA patterns so far suggests that there was little or no interbreeding, but more extensive data will be needed from other parts of the genome, or from the fossils, for definitive conclusions to be reached."
Experts have been wondering whether X-woman might have links with known fossil humans from Asia, which have controversial classifications.
"Certain enigmatic Asian fossils dated between 250,000-650,000 years ago such as Narmada (in India), and Yunxian, Dali and Jinniushan (in China) have been considered as possible Asian derivatives of Homo heidelbergensis, so they are also potential candidates for this mystery non-erectus lineage," said Prof Stringer.
"However, there are other and younger fragmentary fossils such as the Denisova ones themselves, and partial skulls from Salkhit in Mongolia and Maba in China, which have been difficult to classify, and perhaps they do signal a greater complexity than we have appreciated up to now."
Other experts agreed that while the Siberian specimen may be a new species, this has yet to be shown.
"We really don't know," Ian Tattersall of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, told the Associated Press news agency.
Dr Tattersall, who wasn't involved in the new research, added: "The human family tree has got a lot of branchings. It's entirely plausible there are a lot of branches out there we don't know about."

Сотрудник Университета Айовы, биолог Денис Лавров начал сбор подписей в режиме он-лайн под петицией, призывающей закрыть Байкальский целлюлозно-бумажный комбинат. Петицию уже подписали более 600 ученых со всего мира.

A Russian scientist at Iowa State University has started a petition to save Siberia's Lake Baikal. Evolutionary biologist Dennis Lavrov says he felt "an obligation to speak about it," after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in January overturned a 2001 ban on disposing of toxic waste in the lake Russia calls the "Sacred Sea."
The change allows the Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill, which closed in 2008 after 42 years when it couldn't comply with the ban, once more to dump its waste, including cancer-causing dioxins, into the largest, deepest, and oldest freshwater lake in the world.
The online petition to President Dmitry Medvedev is intended "to show that international scientists recognize the danger of the mill ... [and] emphasize the importance of Lake Baikal to the whole world rather than just to Russia," says Lavrov. The lake is "truly a globally unique resource," says Steve Kallick, project director of the Pew Environment Group's International Boreal Conservation Campaign in Seattle, Washington, because of its relative isolation, diverse ecosystem, and well-studied fossil record.
Lavrov says for scientists in his homeland, "being in Russia limits their ability to speak openly about the issue." An environmental group that has campaigned to keep waste out of Lake Baikal reported that it was raided in February by Russian police. As of last week, the petition (http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/baikal/) had 476 signatures from scientists and graduate students, including about 20 (some of them "anonymous") from individuals in Russia.

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