Image an investor who has built two similar cheese dairies that use the latest technologies. One in France, the other in Belarus. It is unlikely that anyone will have any doubts in difference of goods produced by these enterprises. No matter how you regulate or standardize their work, French and Belarusian farmers will get different cheese. Just about the same result can be expected in case of the implementation of nuclear power plant construction project. Even if in France and Belarus these plants are to be built within the framework of the same project, in fact, they will be two different NPPs.
Today, when the whole world is fighting against Covid-19, the situation in China is of highest concern. That is not because of some secret laboratory located in Wuhan, but because China is an authoritarian state, which lacks the notions of transparency and accessibility of information inherent in the democratic West. Whatever is going on in a secret laboratory, no one in the world believes either official statements made by Chinese officials, nor medical statistics of Chinese doctors.
The authoritarian Belarus, which finished the construction of the first nuclear power plant in the country in the town of Ostravets, provokes a similar response. Of course, each state may decide for itself whether it needs nuclear power or not.
For example, if you compare the electricity production at operating nuclear, thermal or hydro power plants, the electricity produced by the NPP will be the cheapest and environmentally friendly. However, taking into account at a whole – construction, operation, decommissioning to the “state of the lawn” (while liquidation of a nuclear power plant takes up to 20% of its construction cost), consequences of hypothetical accidents, operation time (it is usually 30-40 years for a nuclear power plant, although the Russian Federation and the United States extend it to 55-60 years), disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF), then the benefits of using nuclear energy will be quite controversial.
In this case the problem is that in authoritarian Belarus nobody influences anything – neither citizens, nor specialized agencies, nor political parties, nor even the government. Everything is decided by one person – A. Lukashenko who is informally called Daddy (Batska), who means to launch Ostravets NPP before the next staged presidential elections in Belarus (the new imitation of elections should be held no later than August 30, 2020).
When in 2011 Lukashenko gave the green light to build a nuclear power plant, he relied on a quite understandable incentive – to reduce to the maximum Belarus’ dependence on Russian gas supplies. A. Lukashenko planned to replace gas with electricity for heat generation, develop electric transport, and sell the excess electricity to the European Union. The sad truth is that when choosing from two evils, Batska chose the worst. Ostravets NPP will not be able to secure energy independence for Belarus, as far as by creating conditions for the elimination of gas dependence on Russia, it generates nuclear dependence instead. At the same time, the nature of the latter is such that from now Minsk will be even more strongly attached to Moscow in the energy sector.
Thus, if the gas is not paid for, its supplies are suspended. The lack of “blue fuel” is real bad thing, but not fatal, while the nuclear power plant should operate all the time in non-stop regime for the next 30 years. For the whole period the plant would be served exclusively by the Russian team (unlike gas and petrochemical workers, there are no nuclear experts in Belarus), and every 1.5 year Russian nuclear fuel will have to be purchased for the reactors. If Belarus wants to replace the Russian TVEL with the American Westinghouse Electric Corporation following the Ukrainian example, then the warranty for the nuclear reactor will be invalid.
For a number of technical reasons, it is extremely undesirable for the NPP to operate in maneuver mode, an appropriate infrastructure is required to substitute the variable part of the power load schedule. That is, you cannot build a nuclear power plant in the bare field and just turn it on. Therefore, Russian specialists have also to build residual capacities, which binds Belarus to Russia.
In addition, issues related to the disposal of spent nuclear fuel bind Minsk to Moscow even more strongly. Russian experts may have to build a final storage facility for spent nuclear fuel at the Belarusian nuclear power plant (radioactive fission products have a half-life of 200-300 years). Possibly, that spent nuclear fuel will be sent for burial or processing to existing storage facilities and special plants in the same Russia (with its consent and for big money). By the way, for the very construction of the nuclear power plant Minsk have to refund the loan to Moscow – according to various estimates, the issue is about $4.5 billion to $10 billion.
However, the biggest problem in the construction of Ostravets NPP is unreliable Russian technologies and general approach:
– The Belarusian nuclear power plant is constructed at a site that was declared unfavorable in 1993 because of the intersection of regional earth fractures, which still have tectonic activity. Possibly, one of the fractures may move several kilometers. In 1908, not far from the place of future NPP construction, the epicenter of the 7-point earthquake was registered. All these data were confirmed by Belarusian scientists in 2007. Construction of the NPP on such a dangerous site is equivalent to laying a higly-powerful atomic bomb with an explosive that can trigger at any moment, regardless of the NPP operation itself;
– in 2019, at the meeting of the Parties to the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context (EIA Convention) in Geneva the information provided by Belarus on the choice of a site for NPP construction was considered insufficient, i.e. the country did not comply with the Convention requirements;
– in 2018 The European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group (ENSREG) approved the report where it stated that representatives of Belarus and Rosatom do not take into account arguments that the NPP does not meet international safety requirements, ignores the identified shortcomings, does not comply with recommendations and hides criticism of international experts;
– formally, the NPP is being constructed by the state Rosatom. However, as Belarusian journalists investigated, in fact, Rosatom has conveyed the direct execution of the order to affiliated structures, those – to other contractors, those in turn – to subcontractors, and the latter, ultimately, to some slouches. As a result, the station was built and assembled hastily by recruited workers, most of them found themselves on the construction site of a critical infrastructure facility for the first time in their lives. For nine years, construction of the plant was accompanied by a continuous series of accidents, fires, scandals and incidents that killed five workers;
– On July 10, 2016, through the fault of the builders, the 330-ton reactor pressure vessel crashed down (during its displacement) from a height of 7 meters to a concrete pavement. Rosatom and Minsk tried to cover up the incident, and after confirmation of this fact they refuse to disclose all information. As a result of heavy several months’ pressure from civil activists and scientific and technical experts, Rosatom agreed to replace the reactor pressure vessel;
– the new reactor pressure vessel had already been hit against a railway pole, where the emergency cooling system tubes were located. The second (hit) reactor pressure vessel was left without replacement. Extent of damage to the reactor tubes was unknown to the public. At the same time, Belarusian KGB steadily controls both workers inside the construction site (trying to prevent any leak of information related to the construction), and activists and experts trying to cover everything happening at the construction site. Some opponents of Ostravets NPP were even arrested and expelled from Belarus;
– the VVER-1200 reactor is new, such that it is still in the run-in phase and its possible beneficial and negative impacts are still unknown. In 2016, such a reactor was launched for the first time at the Novovoronezh nuclear power plant (Russia), where one of the design flaws was immediately revealed – after the launch the plant immediately failed following burning out of the generator. Other possible errors in the reactor design will be detected already in the operating mode at those plants where it is installed, including Ostravets.
The general approach of Russia and Belarus to the design and construction of the plant is characterized by complete disrespect for the Republic of Lithuania, which in 2011 asked to postpone the implementation of the project until all the issues are fully clarified. The essence of Lithuania’s claims is as follows:
– the Belarusian nuclear power plant shall be constructed 22 km from the border with Lithuania and 53 km from the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, which violates the Espoo Convention;
– in case of a hypothetical accident, there will be catastrophic and irreparable water pollution, as the Neris river basin – the source for the NPP cooling – covers 72% of Lithuania’s territory;
– as the NPP is relatively close to the international airports of 17 European capitals, the possibility of an accident resulting from a plane crash cannot be ruled out. The Belarusian nuclear power plant will be able to withstand the impact of a light aircraft up to 5 tons, but the fall of the airliner of 200 tons will lead to a disaster of Chernobyl or Fukushima scale.
Nevertheless, Moscow and Minsk have easily ignored all the comments made by Vilnius and Brussels, which supported it. Generally, there are vague suspicions that the Russia-built nuclear power plant was conceived by Moscow as a disguised nuclear bomb just Ostravets step from the NATO alliance, located even beyond Russia, on the Belarus territory.
The fact that the project of the Belarusian NPP is commercially dubious is also interesting. Once the NPP is put into operation, Belarus will generate a huge surplus of electricity, but is unlikely to provide markets for it. Thus, the plant will have two power units of up to 1200 MW each: the design capacity of the NPP is 2.4 thousand MW. If the NPP operate at full capacity, the plant will provide 18 billion kilowatts per hour per year – half of what Belarus consumes now.
Minsk hoped that Sweden, which planned to close its NPPs, Lithuania and Poland would become the main consumers of electricity. But Sweden will not stop the plant in one day, and has neighbors as well: Norway with a huge number of gas turbine plants and Finland with its own excess capacity.
Lithuania, which does not forget that “Ostravets Monster” is being built by Russia and it will work within the framework of the common energy system of Russia and its satellite countries, from the very beginning was determined against buying electricity from the Russian energy system. Indeed, due to the growth of its economy, Poland has experienced a shortage of electricity in the last decade. But at the same time, it has been systematically making efforts to abandon any Russian energy sources. Warsaw expects that due to the global economic crisis there will be no need for large amounts of additional electricity in 2020-21.
For some time after the launch of the power station, Belarus will be able to export electricity to the Kaliningrad region of Russia and to Ukraine. But if Russia completes the Baltic NPP (the works are temporarily frozen), and Ukraine completes two blocks at Khmelnitsky NPP (the search for an investor is continued), there will be nowhere to get extra electricity produced by Ostravets NPP.
If we put ourselves in a place of Batska, we will see three possible scenarios in this situation.
Scenario of responsibility. Minsk may hold a public referendum to decide whether to launch or temporarily close down the constructed NPP. For example, in democratic Austria, where in 1976 the first Zwentendorf NPP (out of 6 planned) was built, the government entered into a dialogue with the public anti-nuclear movement. In 1978, Austria announced a referendum on putting the nuclear power plant into operation, where 50.47% of citizens opposed the operation of the plant. The referendum determined not only the fate of the Zwentendorf NPP, but also the state policy – the Austrian government imposed a ban on the use of nuclear energy until 1998, which was later extended.
Scenario of transparent operation. In case of NPP launch, Minsk can make its work fully accessible for any commissions of the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group (ENSREG) and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), as well as secure compliance with all the requirements and regulations of these organizations in a strict and prompt manner. Theoretically, Minsk may also leave the energy system of Russia and synchronize with the energy system of the European Union.
Scenario of energy wars. Minsk may involve in energy wars initiated and conducted by Russia, and do that on the Russian side.
Well, the near future will show exactly what decision A. Lukashenko will take, unilaterally as usual, since there is no doubt that he will be successfully re-elected president of Belarus in August 2020.
Source:Â democratic-europe.eu
