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Hot Campaign: G-7/Chernobyl Replacement Power

The Tenth Anniversary of the Chernobyl catastrophe has pointed out the fact that the rich countries of the world have done virtually nothing to help with the disastrous situation in the Ukraine and Belorus created by the accident. In an effort to use the political pressure of this embarrassment, the Ukrainian and Western nuclear lobbies appear to have created the ultimate deal with the devil. A deal in which western tax payers will have to pay for more dangerous nuclear power plants to be built in the Ukraine.

Just before the 1996 Christian New Year, the G-7 countries (the US, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan) signed an agreement with the Ukraine to provide aid to replace the two operating nuclear power plants at Chernobyl (the 1986 melt down destroyed reactor 4 and a 1991 fire destroyed reactor 2, but units 1 and 3 are still operating). This agreement calls for the Ukraine to close these two dangerous with a target date of the year 2000. What has not been widely publicized is that the fine print of this agreement calls for the G-7 countries to provide US$890 million for the completion of two unfinished Soviet reactors in the Ukraine to replace the two operating Chernobyl reactors.

The likely result of this deal is the worst of all possible worlds. The process of completing Soviet designed reactors to "international standards" is extremely complex. In the only case where it has been attempted, at Temelin in the Czech Republic, it has already run hundreds of millions of dollars over budget and is years delayed. Thus the most likely result of the proposed G-7 deal is that the unfinished replacement reactors will be seriously delayed in completion, will cost much more than expected, and until they are finished the highly dangerous Chernobyl blocks will continue to operate; because the Ukraine will rightly claim that the replacement power is not available. (For details on cost overruns, delays and the deceptive practices of the nuclear lobby in Eastern Europe see Dangerous Deceptions.)

Alternatively, there are numerous cheaper, safer and cleaner energy solutions for the Ukraine, where western aid could be of much greater assistance. World Bank and US Department of Energy (DOE) studies have demonstrated that energy efficiency technology could reduce the demand for electricity in the Ukraine by more than the output of Chernobyls operating reactors at a fraction the cost. A 1994 US DOE study showed that wind power, which is already being developed on the Crimean coast of the Ukraine, would be cheaper then finishing the two proposed nuclear reactors at Rovno and Khmel´nitskiy. Finally, nearly 40% of the Ukraine's existing electricity generating capacity is idle, because there is no fuel for it. Rather then building expensive new nuclear facilities it would be possible to simply improve the pollution controls on existing fossil fuel plants and buy oils, gas and coal for the Ukraine.

Regrettably, none of these options is being seriously considered. Jacque Chirac (who is known for his aggressive nuclear policies) is the current president of the G-7 and he has instructed the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to implement nuclear solutions in the Ukraine as quickly as possible. The World Bank has a policy against investing in nuclear power. The EBRD, however, despite its specifically pro-sustainability founding charter has been fiercely pronuclear, in part because of its French political leadership.

The Bank Watch project has protested this proposal to EBRD President Jacques de Larosiere. Bank Watch is a collection of Central and East European environmental organizations working to insure ecologically prudent investment of development funds.


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