RIA Novosti, Russia
July 27 2005

IAEA director general to appraise prospects of Armenian nuclear power
plant

YEREVAN, July 27 (RIA Novosti, Gamlet Matevosyan) – Director General
of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei
arrived in Yerevan, the Armenian capital, Wednesday.

The Armenian Foreign Ministry said he was scheduled to meet with
Armenian leaders and visit Armenia’s nuclear power plant. The plant
was put into commission in 1980 and closed in March 1989 for
political reasons. The plant was reopened in November 1995 following
the power crisis in the independent republic.

The plant’s second unit has a first generation Russian reactor and
produces 30%-40% of the country’s power. Experts say the plant can
function until 2016.

In September 2003, the plant came under the trust management of INTER
RAO UES, a subsidiary of Rosenergoatom and Russia’s RAO UES
electricity monopoly.

The European Union has insisted on the plant’s conservation and is
ready to allocate 100 million euros for this purpose. However,
Armenian experts say that some 1 billion euros are needed to create
alternative energy sources in Armenia.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress