- The RBMK-1500 in the now decommissioned Ignalina Power Plant wasn't built near a big city, unlike the Belarusian power plant.
- Lithuania invested a lot into the safety of the Ignalina Power Plant, installing the latest European safety systems. Partly thanks to EU, yes, but the point is that there was cooperation and safety improvements. Belarus largely ignored the safaty concerns and recommendations by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
- Lithuania didn't invest into natural gas -- this is just factually not true. Elektrenai Power Plant was modernized (well, in fact, they just built a modern one in the same site and closed down the old units) as a strategic "backup" power plant, but the overall capacity was not expanded. If anything, Lithuania has been investing significantly into renewable energy, although perhaps not as much as we would wish.
Well, it was around 120 km from Vilnius, the new NPP is 60 km from Vilnius which is still sufficient. Leningrad NPP is around 70 km from St. Petersburg.
> Lithuania invested a lot into the safety of the Ignalina Power Plant, installing the latest European safety systems. Partly thanks to EU, yes, but the point is that there was cooperation and safety improvements.
It's still an RBMK and therefore far less safe than any VVER-type reactor.
> Belarus largely ignored the safaty concerns and recommendations by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The IAEA was on site and inspected the plant:
> https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/iaea-delivers-inir-miss...
There is currently also a EU nuclear expert group at the site:
> https://twitter.com/RosatomGlobal/status/1361996208928153604
- Lithuania didn't invest into natural gas -- this is just factually not true.
Quoting: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2020/04/28/eu-nuclear...
"For Lithuania, which invested a lot of money in a liquefied natural gas floating storage and regasification unit in Klaipeda a few years ago, the Belarussian nuke plant means it is a potentially cheaper, and definitely cleaner, readily available source of power generation for neighboring nations. In theory, that takes Lithuania out of the market. It’s the reason they are working overtime to get countries not to buy energy generated from it."
Wikipedia source on the LNG terminal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaip%C4%97da_LNG_FSRU
The purpose of the Lithuanian LNG terminal was diversification of the gas supplies, thus minimizing the dependence on the Russian gas. It was a very successful project, cutting the gas price significantly and forming an effective gas market i.e. allowing the country to buy gas for the global market price (whoever sells for cheapest). Lithuania did not build new gas power plants, though. Quite the opposite, the strategy in the last decade has been to increase the electricity supply from the renewable energy which resulted in building wind and solar plants.
VVER-1200 is used in Hanhikivi Nuclear Power Plant built in Finland by Russian Rosatom. This particular power plant uses comprehensive "package" with extra safety features and also a lot of European equipment. Yet, the regulators still identified a considerable list of issues to be addressed.
Belarus, on the other hand, opted for the cheapest "basic" package with the bare minimum and pretty much "winged" the whole construction, ignoring all foreign concerns.
1: https://www.fennovoima.fi/en/news/quarterly-update-basic-des...
Looks like it has: https://twitter.com/PekkaTMakinen/status/1354383491937538051
Also, Finland already has a plant with two VVER reactors built in cooperation with the Soviet Union:
Loviisa plants are VVER, but they too underwent a lot of redesign compared to the Soviet reference to meet safety criteria. That's why they called it "Eastinghouse".
Good article on the issue: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2020/04/28/eu-nuclear...
This is normal for any plant. Doesn't mean that VVER is less safe.
Do you have a source for that claim?
But the french build it then in France just 10km from the border (the biggest at that time with 4 reactors), and it's closer to our capital then your nuclear power plant to yours.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_ac...
I wouldn't comment on quality of cars, as I do not own any Russian car - and I also do not own any nuclear submarine(yet), but what we know is that Russians can't properly build bunker for their own fuhrer and Nuclear plant is less significant project.
And? You've been running one of the unsafest reactor designs in history and you were actually opposed to shutting it off.
You just built a brand new LNG terminal in Klaipeda [1] and, of course, having such a big plant in Belarus generating 2400 MW of carbon-free energy will mean that electricity production from LNG is getting a fierce competition.
The currently built VVER1200 NPP has pretty good safety:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VVER#Safety_features
There are a lot of these (especially the older version of VVER1200) reactors operating in the European Union. Some of them are not too far from international borders. I think a casual Russophobia is the main driving force of the opposing voices instead of actual criticism of the VVER1200. I am not sure if Russia would want to have another nuclear disaster by not taking nuclear safety seriously. It would be really bad for business.
Some places where these VVER blocks are operating or going to operate:
VVER power stations have been mostly installed in Russia and the former Soviet Union, but also in China, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, India, and Iran. Countries that are planning to introduce VVER reactors include Bangladesh, Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey.
What is the scenario that could cause a catastrophic failure in the VVER design or implementation that would result in a disaster that would create a situation to evacuate cities 50kms away?
I am truly interested in this, because I though that VVERs where designed to avoid any sort of disaster. This is why these have a pretty reliable control rod system with safety factor of 5+ and the containment block can survive a Boeing 747 flying into it. Do you think there is a real change that the reactor going super critical and exploding?
(Of course, things like solar and wind are still generally preferable, if you can store the power effectively.)
In fully half of the INES level 7 the leading cause of death was the evacuation. Designed safety systems are really good. Evacuating should not be an unthinking decision.
For anyone reading along here, this is drawn from a sample size of 2. (Fukushima and Chernobyl)
Not sure about the other ones, but the ones in (East) Germany were decomissioned presto after reunification: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greifswald_Nuclear_Power_Plant
VVER reactors have an overall good safety record so far, the trouble is this one seems botched.
Also, the blocks 5-8 in Greifswald were modern VVER-440/213 which are far more reliable and safe than for example the SWR-69 reactor types used in Neckerwestheim I, Kruemmel and Isar 1 which were all in operation until 2011.
Which was completely unjustified. I visited that plant and the engineers there confirmed me that the VVER-440/213 is safer than all the BWR designs in West-Germany.
WWER-440 has no closed safety vessel, poor emergency cooling and no redundancy to speak of. It is a PWR design that is maybe on par with a poor western BWR. Also, all the reactors in West Germany were continually retrofitted, especially after the lessons learned due to Czernobyl. That wasn't feasible for a Sowjet design during the breakup of the Sowjet Union (while a lot was built in the GDR, there was also a lot that would have been imported).
There is Neris river that is both near Astravets NPP and running through Vilnius - so it is not only 50 kms away and adds other risks.
I hope for the best but stuff like this does not give much confidence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astravets_Nuclear_Power_Plant#...
However, there are some points you miss:
- There is a lot of space for smaller accidents which can happen, including nuclear fuel leaks. Belarusian Power Plant is very close to River Neris and, as far as I know, uses its water for cooling. River Neris goes through Lithuanian capital Vilnius and there is a great concern that accidents can contaminate the water.
- See my point in a post bellow about the nuclear power plants not being built equal, even if they use the same reactor technology.
- Both political systems produced nuclear disasters, but accidents above INES Level 5 only occurred in the Soviet Union; I am not including Fukushima, because its cause was a natural disaster: earthquake followed by tsunami (and their 1960s tech was still holding in the immediate aftermath). Poor quality standards, general attitude to safety, disregard to procedures, etc -- these are the common problems in such political systems like the Soviet one. Also, many of the accidents in the West occurred in 1950s when the nuclear technology was still in its early days. So, no, I don't draw the equality between different political systems in the context of nuclear safety, although perhaps it shouldn't be overestimated either.
A power plant needs access to water for cooling. Belarus is a land-locked country without access to sea, so all of its rivers also flow through other countries. Its watershed is divided between Nemunas, Daugava, and Dnieper, which have Vilnius, Riga, and Kiev situated on them. It seems like there's no place you can build a power plant there without risking a potential contamination of water which would then run through a capital of another state.
Also, Lithuanian Ignalina power plant was using the water eventually getting into Daugava river, running through Riga, a capital of the neighboring Latvia. I can't see why Lithuania itself thinks it's ok to risk potential contamination of water of a neighboring country capital, but not ok when someone else is doing the same to them.
I guess under Soviet regime Lithuanians and Latvians didn’t have any say in the matter where the nuclear power plant must be built (or be built at all).
Why didn't they shut off the plant then right after the Iron Curtain fell? In fact, they actually opposed the closure of that very plant.
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignalina_Nuclear_Power_Plant#S...
Given the circumstances, I’d call 19 years a great success in this case.
It is worth mentioning that the UN commission has decided that the location of the Belarusian power plant was chosen in violation of the Espoo Convention. That's why it's not OK.
A hundred years ago you could happily buy all sorts of drugs in your local pharmacy, but it doesn't mean it was healthy for people. We came a long way with the safety standards and general attitude towards safety. So, the point here is: embrace it instead of looking for excuses. There really were better sites to build the Belarusian NPP, but they built it in violation of the Espoo convention instead of embracing safety and cooperation with your neighbours.
P.S. It is an official recommendation by the Association of Regulators of Western Europe (WENRA) to avoid building NPPs closer than 100 km to the big cities. WENRA was established in 1999, though, so it's relatively recent.
Belarus suffered the most from Chernobyl accident, with 70% of fallout in its territory. And Chernobyl NPP wasn't even in their country. I might think that they are well positioned to do everything they can to prevent any nuclear accident happening in their NPP.
that is main issue.
Given that Belarus is a corrupt authoritarian regime that’s teetering on the edge, I’d say that’s a fair concern.
> https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/iaea-delivers-inir-miss...
> https://twitter.com/RosatomGlobal/status/1360129094906707975
Chernobyl was 100km from Kiev (with a population of 2.5m), but Kiev almost did not suffer, as the winds took the fallout in the direction of ... Belarus, where 70% of it landed.
Given that Belarus can reliably claim the title of a country worst affected by nuclear accidents even before they had a NPP of their own, I think they are well positioned to do everything to prevent any such accidents in the future. Holding nation-wide "drills" just for the case looks a bit like demonizing.
At this point, only the far more modern Neckarwestheim II is operational at the site.
There are EU nuclear inspectors on the site:
> https://twitter.com/RosatomGlobal/status/1360129094906707975
I only hope Lithuania will take it to a good direction: if there is and would never be any nuclear safety anyway, maybe they can at least enjoy the benefits of NPP by building their own.
Lithuania can opt for small nuclear reactors like Estonia did:
> https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/No-time-to-waste-in-...
I guess, this is a very political topic and that has nothing to do with technical parameters of plants, because Belarus is constantly polluting rivers and that pollution is coming through into neighbouring countries. And there is nothing that these countries can do about and power plant belongs to the same issue.
Yeah, your commenting activity doesn't seem to be Russian troll at all to readers of NH, but for someone who has to encounter similar active trolls in Baltic sources, this doesn't seem like credible non-troll activity(paid or unpaid - doesn't matter). So, under a threat of being blocked here, I think, that it should be noted that some of the behaviour of cbmuser(and accompanying friends and "opponents") ticks most of the flags of what in Baltics is known under a name of "Russian troll factory", where they are actively swarming on specific topics.
Or they may be less confident when they don't manage a plant.
In any case they may be right even if they didn't apply their own precepts ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque )
> Lithuania is just upset because they invested a lot into natural gas plants
Quote:
"Lithuania invested almost 500 million euros in their aspiration of being an LNG supplier for an EU supposedly weening neighbors from Russia. Since then, their EU partners, led by Germany, collaborated with Gazprom to build a second natural gas pipeline to Germany, undercutting Lithuania."
> https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2020/04/28/eu-nuclear...
That's not true. All of Fukushima reactors were constructed before Chernobyl's reactors. Fukushima's reactors are based on a 50's design by GE/Westinghouse.
They are very old to the point where they could be labelled ancient.
So the man-made disaster consisted in allowing to build something like this in an area where there are earthquakes so big.
Man made disaster is the prices for electricity we pay in Germany, while France is happy generating nuclear power and pays 30% less.
A state law (2015-992, from 2015, the "loi relative à la transition énergétique pour la croissance verte") states that the part of nuke-produced electricity must fall to less than 50% in 2025, from 72% then, and that renewables must replace it.
In France nuke-power is backed by gas (which produced 10,3% of gridpower in 2017).
The sole reactor currently planned (Flamanville-3) is a complete disaster, more than 10 years behind schedule and 4x overbudget. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan...
A safest place could have been in the direction of Ignalina, the area has low density population both in Belarus, Lithuania and Latvia.
And because the Lithuanians did build a NPP in that position in precedence, they would have lost one of the main point they are complaining about: proximity to the capital
In our non-democratic country all decisions are made by single person and you know his name. The idea of selling electricity to Baltics was imposed by Russia to him. Russia gives loan and builds NPP, and Belarus makes money. Who'd say no to this, right?
Now, when Lithuania makes everything it can to ban transferring electricity from Belarusian NPP into EU, our government has a painful headache. They really don't know how to use this electricity inside Belarus. They also need to build new reserve capacity for NPP.
P.S. 1-st NPP in Belarus/BSSSR were being constructed ~ in 35km (22 miles) from Minsk (capital). But it was cancelled after Chernobyl explosion and converted into gas-fired power plant.
P.P.S Less than mont ago our minister of energy were talking about 2nd and 3rd NPP.
Belarus previously had 99% of its electricity produced by thermal plants. The new NPP will produce 30% of the power in Belarus and seriously reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
See: https://twitter.com/RosatomGlobal/status/1323580827377258507
Also, where do you suggest building a hydro power plant, given that the difference between the highest and the lowest point in the country is about 200 m?
The majority of Lithuanians opposed shutting down their own plant in Ignalina which was done on request of the European Union. I think it was even a requirement for their EU membership.
And now just a decade later, the same people are worried about the safety of a far more modern and safer plant as the one that they refused to shut down just 140 km away?
Not very credible at all.
Lithuania is just upset because they invested a lot into natural gas plants and now Belarus is competing with zero-emission electricity from a Generation III+ plant they would love to have themselves.