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ENVIRONMENT-KAZAKHSTAN: Planned Nuke Plant Generates Worries
By Marina Kozlova - Asia Water Wire*
BALKASH, Nov 5 (IPS) - Residents taking a stroll along this town's sandy beach, strewn with broken bottles and discarded tyres, often talk about the prospect of a nuclear power plant being built a few hundred km from here.
In fact, concern over this nuclear plant has, at least for now,
overshadowed fears much closer to local folk - the pollution of
Balkhash lake from heavy metals and sulphides caused by the
operations of the industrial association Balkhashtsvetmet.
Authorities in this Central Asian, one of the largest uranium producers in the world, are intent on building a nuclear power plant and developing the nuclear energy industry here.
But local officials, along with some residents, oppose the plan
to construct a nuclear plant, at an estimated cost of two billion US dollars.
''The town doesn't lack power. The question of building the
plant is settled at the national level," Kazhymurat Tokushev, the
mayor of Balkhash, told Asia Water Wire.
By end-2006, a special work group in the government must decide
if the plant will be built on Lake Balkhash in the country's south-
east or in other region, according to Kairat Kadyrzhanov, general
director of Kazakhstan's National Nuclear Centre. The final decision
will depend on many factors, including the sentiments of local
residents toward the project, he says.
But members of the Movement for the Revival of the Balkhash
Region, a non-governmental organisation based in Balkhash, are
confident that the plant will be built on the site of an unfinished
thermal power station near the lake.
In 1997, the St Petersburg-based research and design institute
Atomenergoproject undertook a feasibility study on the construction
of a nuclear plant there. The work was done in accordance with an
agreement between Kazakhstan's National Joint-Stock Company of Atomic
Energy and Industry and the Russian institute.
"Despite the fact that it was built as a thermal power station,
there was talk that it will become a nuclear power plant in the end," Daut Shishov, deputy head of the Movement for the Revival of the Balkhash Region, said in an interview. "It is not hard to transform a thermal power station into a nuclear power plant. And what is more, the area around it is rather deserted."
The plant is envisioned to have three ‘VVER-640' type
reactors with a total capacity of 1,900 Mw. VVER-640 is a
new design with improved safety features, but like any technology its absolute safety is not guaranteed, according to the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy.
Shishov, one of the few vocal supporters of the nuclear plant
project on Lake Balkhash, says that technical progress - in the form of new energy through nuclear power - cannot be stopped. Moreover, the region could use the revenue it generates from selling electricity to meet its other needs such as breeding sturgeon, he adds.
But if Shishov thinks ways can be found for the nuclear plant to
be safe, the movement's head, Kadylkhan Tokshymanov, thinks
otherwise, and says corruption is likely to rear its head.
"Nuclear power plants can be built in rich countries where
everything is done according to projects and people do not steal,"
Tokshymanov said in an interview.
He continued: "Up to half the money allocated for building in
poor countries is usually embezzled, which reduces the safety of
construction (work)." Also, "Kazakhstan is a rather poor country."
In October, Kazakhstan and Russia signed documents to set up
three nuclear joint ventures, with equal shares in their authorised
capital. The joint ventures will extract Kazakh uranium ore, enrich
uranium in Russia's Irkutsk region and develop projects involving
plants with small and medium-power reactors to be sold in
Kazakhstan, Russia and other countries
Tokshymanov added, "There is lack of electric power in the areas
to the south of Lake Balkhash." He explained the nuclear plant plans
thus: "Russia (which manufactures and sells reactors) has lobbyists in Kazakhstan's government."
The plant will use water from Balkhash, which will push down the
lake's water levels. At the international ecological forum
Balkhash-2000 held in Almaty in 2000, ecologists warned that its
construction and operation can lead to air and water pollution.
"I am unambiguously against nuclear power plants, especially in
Kazakhstan that has lots of energy resources, including abundant
reserves of oil, natural gas and coal," Mels Eleusizov, the head of
Kazakhstan's Tabigat environmental movement and a former presidential candidate, told AWW. "The country is well endowed with sun and wind (which are also energy resources.)"
Moreover, he said, "We will not allow building the plant on
Balkhash - if necessary, we will address the country and press the
state into holding a referendum."
Lake Balkhash, the 15th largest lake in the world, is the second
largest in Central Asia. It covers over 16,000 sq km
with a length of 600 kilometres and a width that varies from five to
70 kilometres. The lake's average depth is 5.8 metres, but its
maximum depth reaches 25.6 metres.
"Of course I am against the nuclear power plant," a young woman
who introduced herself as Lena said, walking along the shore with a
six month-old baby in her arms. "As thing are, we have bad ecology
here because of Balkhashtsvetmet (a gigantic enterprise producing
copper, zinc, silver and gold.) The plant would make the ecology
worse."
(*The Asia Water Wire, coordinated by IPS Asia-Pacific, is a series
of features around water and development in the region.)
(END/2006)
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