ANALYSIS: Does Ukraine need more nuclear-power reactors? (07/14/02)

ANALYSIS

Does Ukraine need more nuclear-power reactors?

by Vera Rich
RFE/RL Poland, Belarus and Ukraine Report

The expansion of Ukraine's electrical generating capacity by the construction of new reactors at the Rivne and Khmelnytskyy nuclear power stations will "benefit only Germany and Russia," claims an article in the Ukrainian opposition newspaper Svoboda on June 11. The article was originally written last December when an environmental group, the Youth Committee for National Safety, held a "people's hearing" in Kyiv to discuss the expediency of completing the new reactors. Until now, however, the author, Yevhen Zelinskyi, had been unable to find a publication willing to print it.

The organizers of the December event had wanted to call it a "public hearing," but to do so would have required the authorization of the state authorities. Their requests for this authorization were ignored, however, so, to stay within the law, they redesignated it a "people's hearing." This change of name gave the bodies most concerned with the nuclear program, the Ministry of Fuel and Power, the Enerhoatom state nuclear power monopoly, the State Committee for Nuclear Regulation, and the relevant parliamentary committees, a pretext for ignoring the hearing.

Had it been a "public" and not a "people's" hearing, they claimed, they would have sent representatives. Even the "green" environment minister, Serhii Kurykin, ignored the event, though he is said to have doubts as to the expediency of going ahead with the reactors. The only person who came from the "nuclear" side was an engineer from the Khmelnytskyy station, who could discuss technical matters but was hardly in a position to deal with larger policy issues. As a result, the questions raised by the hearing remain unanswered.

These questions addressed more than the issue of safety - which, since the explosion at the Chornobyl nuclear power station in April 1986, has held a dominant place in the Ukrainian national psyche. The hearing duly noted that the new reactors are being built in accordance with an outmoded (1984) Soviet design (not, incidentally, that of the ill-fated Chornobyl station), and that other similar reactors in Ukraine are still operating on only a temporary license. Furthermore, the hearing asserted, the state environmental inquiry regarding the new networks had not yet presented its report. Hence, their construction was both premature and illegal, and should be halted immediately.

When challenged over nuclear safety, however, those concerned with Ukraine's energy strategy, particularly in the early years of independence, have repeatedly argued for the need to balance conflicting threats: the possibility of deaths arising from a future nuclear accident and the certainty of winter deaths from hypothermia due to a lack of generating capacity. The surviving reactors at the Chornobyl station would then have to be kept in operation until the new reactors at Rivne and Khmelnytskyi (based on a less hazardous reactor design) are ready to replace them.

The people's hearing, therefore, challenged the necessity and economics of the new reactors, saying that nuclear generators have to operate around the clock and that Ukraine now has more than sufficient around-the-clock capacity. The hearing questioned why Ukraine would construct an additional 2-megawatts capacity of nuclear power that operates around the clock, when what Ukraine needs is more top-up power to be brought on line at times of peak demand - power that could be conveniently provided by modernizing the country's conventional generators that run on Ukraine's own coal.

Finally, the hearing also raised political issues. Germany, it said, is committed to phasing out its own nuclear power over the next 20 years and will have to import more energy; Russia wants to sell its obsolete reactors that no other country "except possibly Iraq" will buy, together with fuel and spare parts over the next 40 years. It is they who will benefit, while Ukraine takes the risks. President Leonid Kuchma, the hearing alleged, is prepared to accept this situation in order to meet the needs of his "precious, too precious friends," Russia and Germany.

The hearing last December also had a topical context: President Kuchma had just castigated the former Cabinet for agreeing to a loan to finance the new reactors with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development on terms that, he said, were tantamount to "slavery," and for confirming that the reactors would be completed with Russian help.

During the past six months, however, the issue has not lost its topicality, as a postscript to the original article indicates. On March 29, it reports, six people appealed to Kyiv's Pecherskyi District Court, seeking the restoration of their right to "a safe life and environmental safety," which, they said, had been placed at risk by Enerhoatom upon the construction of the new reactors at Khmelnytskyi and Rivne. They offered documentary evidence that the construction is illegal and called on the court to halt the financing and construction of the reactors unless, and until, the state environmental enquiry gives its clearance.

On April 24, however, the court rejected the appeal, noting that, "the plaintiffs addressed the court in the interests of society," but they did not have the authority to make such an appeal.

Less physically hazardous, but not without its own dangers for Ukraine, are the plans for a consortium of Russia, Ukraine, and Germany to manage gas transit through Ukraine. At first glance, it seems set to benefit all three parties: Russia will supply and Germany will receive the gas, without the danger of unauthorized Ukrainian siphoning; and Ukraine will be ensured the financial benefits of transit, without the threat that Russia will reroute all its west-bound gas through Belarus.

A document to this effect, signed by the Russian and Ukrainian prime ministers on June 21, guarantees gas transit via Ukraine of at least 110 billion cubic meters annually. Russia, likewise, guarantees to ensure the steady supply of gas to Ukraine under contracts already concluded between Ukraine and Central Asian suppliers. Furthermore, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the creation of the consortium will make it possible to attract in the near future the $2.5 billion of foreign capital needed to upgrade Ukraine's dilapidated pipeline system.

However, the newspaper Segodnia warns that setting up a consortium implies the "imminent corporatization of the gas transportation system," which, in turn, may well prove the "first step toward privatization" of Ukraine's main gas pipelines. It is unclear what stakes the participants will have in the consortium and if future European partners will come up with "big money." Ukraine needs to walk warily, or one day it may find that "the money-spinning pipeline is no longer ours, but simply runs across our territory."

Vera Rich is a London-based free-lance researcher.

| Home Page |