United Press International
Published: Sept. 13, 2007
By JOHN C.K. DALY
UPI International Correspondent
Of the three post-Soviet Caucasian republics, Armenia in many ways
remains the most isolated.
Unlike rising petro-states Azerbaijan and Georgia, which earn millions
of dollars annually from transit fees for the Baku-Supsa and
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipelines, Armenia has, since even before the
Soviet collapse, struggled to meet its power needs. It relies on its
aging Metsamor nuclear power station for nearly 40 percent of its
energy generation.
Metsamor, which began operations in 1976, contains two VVER-400 V230
376 megawatt nuclear reactors generating about 2 million kilowatt
hours of energy annually.
Many environmentalists regard it as an accident waiting to happen. The
Armenian government closed Metsamor’s Unit 1 in February 1989 and Unit
2 the next month following a massive December 1988 earthquake.
Armenia’s isolation intensified in the aftermath of its armed conflict
with neighboring Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave. During
the clash, which erupted in February 1988 and lasted until May 1994,
Azerbaijan blockaded roads, rail lines and energy supplies, leading to
severe energy shortages in Armenia. In 1991 pressure to restart
Metsamor increased after a vital natural gas pipeline from
Turkmenistan was blocked by a Turkish and Azeri fuel embargo. By the
winter of 1994-95, residents of Yerevan often had only an hour or two
of electricity daily, which the restart of Metsamor’s Unit 2 increased
to 10-12 hours per day.
Economic compulsions forced Armenia to restart Unit 2 in October
1995. Five months before the restart, a team of experts from the
International Atomic Energy Agency visited Metsamor to assess the
seismic characteristics of the plant and site. It cautiously concluded
that the plant’s seismic protection measures were satisfactory. Both
the United States and the European Union strongly opposed reopening
the facility, saying Metsamor’s Soviet-designed reactor was unsafe and
have since given tens of millions of dollars in aid to upgrade
Metsamor’s safety systems while pressuring the Armenian government to
close the facility as soon as possible.
Armenia’s energy shortages and deepening ties with Iran, along with
its professed interest in nuclear power, has won it Washington’s
attention.
Armenia is not alone in its renewed attention to nuclear power; by
2020 Russia plans to build 26 new nuclear power plants, increasing its
share of nuclear power generation in the federation’s total energy
production from its current level of 15 percent to 30 percent.
Armenia has adroitly exploited U.S. and European concerns about
Metsamor to entice the EU into assisting the country to develop
alternative power sources. The European Commission’s Technical Aid to
the Commonwealth of Independent States’ `Substitution of nuclear power
through the development of hydropower capacity’ project is designed to
increase Armenia’s hydropower capacities with the eventual goal of
shuttering the Metsamor plant by upgrading Armenia’s hydropower
capacity by approximately 70 megawatts, beginning with the Tatev Hydro
Power Plant, the major station of a group of hydroelectric facilities
that collectively provided 15 percent of Armenia’s electricity in
2004.
`Vorotan plays an important part in regulating the purity and
reliability of our energy system’s performance,’ Armenian Deputy
Energy Minister Areg Galstyan said of the project. `We therefore
focused our collaboration activities with the EU in this area.’
The TACIS project also completed feasibility studies for the
construction of seven small and medium-sized hydropower plants with a
total capacity of 80 megawatts.
Armenia’s energy policies represent a rare conjunction of EU, U.S. and
Russian interests. Since 2003 Metsamor has been operated by the
Russian company Inter RAO UES under a five-year agreement to help pay
off Armenia’s debts. Keeping all its options open, Armenia is also
considering construction of a new nuclear facility on the Metsamor
site at a cost of about $2 billion. Armenian Energy Minister Armen
Movsisyan told Parliament, "The project’s feasibility study is being
carried out by Armenia, Russia, the U.S. and the International Atomic
Energy Agency. The old NPP is to be rebuilt within 4½ years," adding
that Metsamor must be operational until alternative power sources are
found.
Throughout the Soviet Union, Armenians were legendary for their
business acumen. By adroitly playing upon EU environmental concerns,
Russian eagerness for business contracts and American desires to
thwart Iranian energy exports, Armenia may pull off its biggest coup
yet, having foreign investors pay for diversifying its energy assets.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress