Bellona, UK
June 23 2004
EU is freezing 100m euros of aid to Armenia after refusal to shut
down its nuclear plant.
“Our position of principle is that nuclear power plants should not be
built in highly active seismic zones.”
It was said by Alexis Loeber, head of the EU’s delegation in Armenia,
BBC reported. The European Union, as part of its general policy
seeking the closure of elderly nuclear plants constructed in
territories of the former Soviet Union, agreed to give the grant aid
($122m) to Armenia for finding alternative energy sources and for
helping with decommissioning costs at the plant. In return, the
government in Yerevan would commit to a definite date for the plant’s
closure. “We cannot force Armenia to close the plant,” says the EU’s
Mr Loeber. “We feel that should definitely be well in advance of the
end of Metsamor’s design lifecycle in 2016.” The Metsamor plant has
no secondary containment facilities, a safety requirement of all
modern reactors, BBC reported.
Another concern is that due to border and railway closures with
surrounding territories, nuclear material to feed the plant is flown
into Armenia from Russia. “It is the same as flying around a
potential nuclear bomb,” says Mr Loeber. “It’s an extremely hazardous
exercise.” Areg Galstyan, the country’s deputy minister of power,
says $50m has been spent on upgrading safety at Metsamor. “It was a
big mistake to shut the plant in 1988,” says Mr Galstyan. “It created
an energy crisis and the people and economy suffered. Electricity
industry specialists say that due to the expansion and updating of
existing thermal and hydro-energy plants, the country has become an
electricity exporter in recent years. A major new power source will
come on stream in 2006 when a pipeline supplying gas from
neighbouring Iran is due to be completed, BBC reported.
At the same time PACE prepared four documents urging to close the
station. Despite some calls of international organizations to close
the station, the Armenian government did not respond to them.
European Union many times suggested Armenia to close Metsamor but
Armenia rejected them. As a result, European Union had to impose an
economic sanction on Armenia by refusing to allocate $100 million.
the
Armenian Trade Minister Chshmaritian reiterated Yerevan’s rejection
of the offer, saying that as much as $1 billion is needed for safely
shutting down Metsamor safely and putting in place an alternative
source of inexpensive energy. He added the Armenia-EU body decided to
set up a working group that will look into the issue in detail and
present its findings by the end of this year, Baku Today reports.
The Metsamor Nuclear Power plant produced 1.9 billion kilowatt hours
of electricity in 2003, or 36 percent of the total generation of
electricity in Armenia. ZAO Inter RAO UES, a subsidiary of Russia’s
Unified Energy System, and Armenia signed a contract in September
2003 to hand over trust management of the plant to Inter RAO UES.