Le Monde Diplomatique
Dec 1 2017
‘Risk to the whole of Europe’: Armenia’s antiquated nuclear power
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.