(August 19, 1994) The G7 (the seven richest nations) decided at a meeting in Napels, first week of July, to give Ukraine $800 million to both close down the Chernobyl nuclear plant and finish the five half-constructed reactors of the Soviet VVER type elsewhere in the Ukraine.
(415/6.4113) WISE Amsterdam - They insist these reactors must meet adequate safety standards and ask Ukraine to consider non-nuclear options as well. $600 million of the money is donated by the European Union.
An immediate grant of $300 million is supposed to be used to shut down Chernobyl. But a report of the US Department of Energy, released a week before the G7 meeting, states that preparatory work and plant shutdown will cost near $800 million, i.e. the total grant of the G7 and EU.
Ukraine has recently agreed that Chernobyl should be shut, but also demands replacing power supply. It wants to reduce its dependence on imported fossil fuels and considers the five 1000-megawatt pressurized water VVER reactors the best substitution. The VVERs at Khmel'nitskiy and Zaporozhe could be finished next year, two more at Khmel'nitskiy and one at Rovno could be completed by 1999.
However, similar VVERs in Bulgaria have suffered repeated accidents and shutdowns, since they started operation in 1992. The IAEA finds the VVER-1000 design does not meet Western safety standards on many aspects. Since three of the VVERs are almost finished, it is not likely these safety standards will ever be achieved. Ukrainian companies cannot supply the electronics needed for a safe plant and Western companies are unlikely to work on the reactors, since Ukraine did not sign the Vienna Convention which protects companies that build nuclear plants against law-suits for damages in case of accidents.
The US Department of Energy report outlines the costs of various strategies for replacing Chernobyl. This report shows finishing the VVERs is the most expensive variant. A far cheaper option would be to speed up existing plans for wind farms, upgrade existing hydro-electric plants, improve the 14 coal-fired plants and, most of all, improve (industrial) efficiency. According to the IAEA and the Worldbank Ukraine could easily reduce its consumption of energy to a quarter of the power it now uses. The country needs five times as much electricity for each unit of economic production as the average for the industrialized nations that make up the OECD.
The Ukrainian authorities endorse the report, but oppose that the last plan would require complete overhaul of the infrastructure, lasting decades.
Source: New Scientist, 30 April & 16 July 1994
Contact: Zeleny Svit, Kontaktova 4, Kiev 70, Ukraine. Tel: +7-044- 4165218/4170283; Fax: +7-044- 4174383. e-mail: eazzeleny- svit@gluk.apc.org.