Le Monde Diplomatique

Dec 1 2017

 

 

 

A Soviet-era nuclear reactor supplies 40% of Armenia’s power needs. It’s ageing and in the middle of a seismically active zone just outside the capital Yerevan.

 

by Damien Lefauconnier

Armenia’s antiquated nuclear power

Cucumbers, anyone? Armenia has long been asked to shut down its Soviet-era Metsamor nuclear power station

AFP · Getty

 

The nuclear power station at Metsamor, near Aramvir, lies between Mt Aragats (4,095m), Armenia’s highest peak, and Mt Ararat (5,165m), Turkey’s highest, 50km to the south. A group of women were picking tomatoes near the gates. One said: ‘Our husbands all work at the plant. They say there’s no danger.’ Her friend said: ‘Of course, we are worried there will be another earthquake.’

 

Metsamor was built in the Soviet era, in a highly seismic area where the Arabian and Eurasian plates meet. The first VVER-440 reactor, with an output of 400MW, came online in 1976 and was followed in 1979 by a second unit with the same capacity. In 1988 an earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale destroyed the town of Spitak, 70km to the north, killing 25,000 people and creating 500,000 refugees. The government suspended the operation of the two reactors as a precaution.

 

After independence, in 1991, Armenia faced a severe energy shortage, made worse by the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the blockade Azerbaijan and Turkey have imposed ever since. In 1995 the government decided to restart the no 2 reactor, despite the concerns of neighbouring countries. A European Union envoy wrote in 2004 that the plant ‘continues to represent a considerable risk for the whole of Europe due to its age and its location in a highly seismic zone’ . The EU offered Armenia €100m in aid to close the site, but this was judged insufficient. Sharon Zarb of the EU’s External Action Service said: ‘It is still the Commission’s position that the reactor should be stopped as soon as possible, as it doesn’t conform to internationally recognised standards.’

 

Former deputy energy minister Areg Galstyan (now a ministerial

adviser) said: ‘To us, Metsamor is a matter of life and death. In the

early 1990s we had a severe energy crisis. We started overexploiting

the water of Lake Sevan, and cutting down trees on a massive scale.

Restarting the plant was vital for our economy and for the

environment.’According to government figures, the plant today supplies

40% of Armenia’s energy needs.

 

Like an open-air museum

 

Though Armenian NGOs regularly criticise the government over a lack of

information, I was given permission to see inside Metsamor. It feels

like an open-air museum of Soviet-era nuclear power generation. At the

entrance, employees are searched and made to walk through a metal

detector, and groups of soldiers patrol the facility. General director

Movses Vardanyan said: ‘The 1988 earthquake didn’t break even one

window,’ adding that ‘since 1995, we have made 1,400 safety

improvements.’ These include metal reinforcing plates fixed to

external walls, to increase seismic resistance, and impressive

cross-bracing on the upper floors, especially in the building that

houses the reactors and turbines.

 

There is a total ban on taking photographs of the lower part of the

hall. It’s easy to see why, from the dusty mess of pipes and machinery

belonging to the no 1 reactor, which has stood idle since 1989 and

hasn’t yet been dismantled. The operational no 2 reactor is an exact

copy of the first, but better maintained. The steam pipes have been

patched up with metal plates; 64 hydraulic shock absorbers, made in

Japan, have been installed under key parts of the plant. ‘In the event

of an earthquake, they will absorb the shockwave,’ said Vahram

Petrosyan, director of Armatom (Armenian Scientific Research Institute

for Nuclear Power Plant Operation), miming a surfer. ‘The plant is

able to function normally during [a peak ground] acceleration of

0.47g,’ According to a study by the Electric Power Research Institute

quoted by the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the peak

ground acceleration in 1988 exceeded 0.5g and may have reached 1.0g.

 

The control room was filled with dials and diodes typical of the

1970s. The plant’s output, in red figures, fluctuated between 258 and

362MW. A computer display on the back wall showed the same values as

the displays scattered around the room. Vardanyan said: ‘This

computerised safety system allows us to stop the reactor from

outside.’ When asked why there was no confinement structure around the

reactor hall, he said it would be impossible to build one, as ‘the

foundations wouldn’t take the weight.’

 

Radioactive waste

 

Another sensitive issue is the management of radioactive waste, which

has been stored at the plant since 1976. ‘Experience shows fuel rods

can be stored for 50 years, so we’ll have problems in a few years’

time,’ Vardanyan said. I was not allowed to see the storage site.

Gérald Ouzounian, director of the international division of France’s

national agency for radioactive waste management Andra, has visited

Metsamor several times: ‘The casks are stored at the plant, but

ideally they should be kept in such a way as to avoid any future risk

of release of radioactivity into the environment. The situation at

Metsamor reflects the Soviet practice of leaving spent fuel rods on

site until power plants reached the end of their service life, and

then disposing of them at the same time as the waste produced when the

facilities were dismantled. Unfortunately, the ageing of the casks

makes this rather less easy than the designers originally

envisaged.’The Armenian government says it is looking at a scheme for

storing radioactive waste for 300 years.

 

The town of Metsamor, 2km south, was built to house the plant’s 1,700

workers and their families, and is mainly tall, dilapidated, apartment

blocks. The residents place their faith in the IAEA’s regular

inspections, reassured by the prestige of an international

institution. According to a woman who has worked at Metsamor since

1977 as a decontamination technician, ‘there has never been any

problem’. The IAEA sends a specialist team about every two years. Greg

Rzentkowski, director of the nuclear installation safety division,

said there had been ‘progress in the implementation of earthquake

protection measures and updating of a number of safety systems,’ but

when asked about the state of the reactor, Armenian working practices

and seismic risk, he regretted he couldn’t be more specific, because

of IAEA restrictions.

 

There are rumours of exposure to radiation. Naira Arakelyan, director

of the NGO Aramvir Development Centre, said that around 30 local

families were concerned about their children’s handicaps. We set up a

meeting, but some managers from the plant turned up and would not let

the others speak. I later met Tsovinar Harutyuanyan at her

apartment.‘A few years ago,’ she said, ‘we used to meet quite

regularly, but not any more. I remember there were two little blind

children, and others with different physical problems.’ Her son

Rostom, 20, is severely mentally handicapped. ‘His illness can’t be

genetic. There are no similar cases in my family or my husband’s. My

husband works at the plant as a machinery operator. Maybe there was an

accident in the danger zone?’

 

Vahagn Khachatryan, mayor of Yerevan 1992-6 and adviser to Armenia’s

president 1996-8, said that one of his friends, who worked at the

plant, had died of cancer a few days earlier. ‘I don’t know if it’s

possible to establish a link to the plant. But every time I drive past

in my car, I think how dangerous it is, mostly because the metal in

the reactor is ageing.’

 

Researchers sent by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)

to help the Armenian government assess seismic risk in 2012 were

surprised at the safety advice given in Armenia’s national plan to

protect its population in a nuclear emergency: ‘According to this

plan, people should stay on the ground floor of their house or go into

the cellar for shelter, but in a major earthquake, it’s too dangerous

to stay indoors as aftershocks may cause buildings to collapse. In an

earthquake, the first priority is to secure an escape route.’

 

Was Russian report suppressed?

 

The proximity of tectonic faults is one of the main factors experts

consider when assessing seismic risk. Officially, the nearest fault is

more than 19km from the plant and for this reason the proximity factor

‘can be reasonably excluded.’ But Hakob Sanasaryan, former member of

the national assembly and now head of the NGO Greens’ Union of

Armenia, claims the government has suppressed the far more alarming

conclusions of a 1992 report by four members of the Russian Academy of

Sciences (RAS) for Armenia’s National Seismic Protection Service: ‘The

greatest danger to the plant is a tectonic fault in the immediate area

(0.5km away), at the intersection of the Aragats-Spitak and

South-Yerevan faults, where there is high seismic potential. Between

851 and 893AD, a series of devastating earthquakes measuring at least

IX on the Mercalli scale, 6.5 on the Richter scale, occurred in an

area less than 50km east of the plant, killing a very large number of

people.’ Tenth-century historian T‘ovma Acrcuni described an

earthquake in 893, which destroyed the city of Dvin, the former

capital of Armenia, 25km southeast of Metsamor (3).

 

To us, Metsamor is a matter of life and death. Restarting the plant

after the energy crisis of the early 1990s was vital for our economy

and for the environment Areg Galstyan

 

Since the 9th century, around 20 earthquakes measuring between 5.5 and

7.5 on the Richter scale are thought to have occurred within an 80km

radius of Metsamor, according to the Armenian National Atlas. The

atlas describes a magnitude 6 earthquake in 1830 near Metsamor itself.

 

Valentin Ivanovich Ulomov of the Uzbekistan Academy of Sciences, a

co-author of the 1992 report, confirmed its conclusions but would not

discuss the team’s mission in greater detail. Evgeny Alexandrovich

Rogozhin of the RAS, another co-author, said he did not remember if

the team had investigated the seismic fault themselves. Artem

Petrosyan of the Armenian energy ministry, when asked for more

information on seismic risk, said the documents were ‘not accessible

to the public.’

 

The general hospital in Metsamor would lead the medical response in

the event of a radiation release. It claims to have iodine pills for

distribution to the local population. The upper floors of the hospital

building are dilapidated and mouldy, with big holes in the walls.

Samvel Aleksanyan, head of oncology, said: ‘When the Russians left,

the people in charge at the plant said they had no more money for the

hospital. The maternity department closed, and the radiation exposure

department. People with money go to Yerevan for treatment. The rest

come here.’

 

Despite the risks, Armenia is not ready to abandon nuclear power. In

2015 the government decided to keep the current plant running until

2026, allowing time to build a new one, financed by Russia, on the

same site. Galstyan said: ‘The new plant will have an output of

between 600 and 1,000MW, almost certainly 1,000. So we have about nine

years in which to choose the technology, its scale and its capacity.’

 

(1) See Philippe Descamps, ‘Dug in for the duration’, Le Monde

diplomatique, English edition, December 2012.

 

(2) See European Commission, ‘European Neighbourhood and Partnership

Instrument: Armenia, Country Strategy Paper 2007-2013’.

 

(3) Quoted in Emanuela Guidoboni and Jean-Paul Poirier, Quand la Terre

tremblait (When the Earth Shook), Odile Jacob, Paris, 2004.