UKRAINE: West Given Deadline for Chernobyl Finance

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Andrei Ivanov

MOSCOW, Dec 22 1996 (IPS) - After yet another round of talks with western officials, Ukraine has issued an ultimatum on the proposed closure of Chernobyl.

Unless the western countries provide the grants and loans which have been promised to help finance closure by June 1997, the plant will remain open after 2000, say Ukrainian officials.

The warning, reported by the European Nuclear Society’s NucNet information service last week, was given during talks which took place in the town of Slavutich – the new town built for Chernobyl operators after the 1986 accident.

The western delegation included representatives of the Group of Seven (G-7) richest nations countries, the European Union (EU) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

Ukraine’s delegation, which took a united stand, included Minister of the environment and Nuclear Safety Yuri Kostenko as well as representatives of the ministries of economics and finance, foreign affairs, energy, emergency situations, and Goskomatom (the state committee for the use of nuclear power).

The G-7 leading industrialised states have pledged 3.1 billion dollars in grants and credits to help Ukraine meet its pledge to close Chernobyl fully by 2000.

The western delegation was told that receipt of credits to finance completion of two half-built nuclear plants at Rovno (Unit 4) and Khmelnitsky (Unit 2) were “a mandatory condition” for closure.

The cost of this is expected to be between 940 million dollars and 1.2 billion dollars. However, Kostenko says Ukraine has so far received only 150 million ECU (185 million dollars) from the West.

This includes a grant of 118 million ECU from the G-7 Nuclear Safety Account which is administered by the EBRD. These are for short-term safety upgrades and some waste management facilities.

Loans totalling 800 million ECU from the bank for completion of the new nuclear units will depend on the outcome of an economic assessment which will also consider other energy options. The bank does not expect to receive this report until mid-January.

Even if the report favours the nuclear option, no funds are likely to be disbursed before mid-1997 which means the deadline set by Ukraine is unlikely to be met.

“Ukraine has not got its money yet and our chief task next year is to open an account where the money to fund closure can come in,” Kostenko notes. Experts from both sides are due to have a major meeting in Denver, Colorado in June.

The issue is further complicated by indecision over how to handle the sarcophagus built to cover the crippled fourth reactor. Ukraine will need about 70 years to make it safe, Kostenko says.

“We must remove nuclear fuel from the sarcophagus to rule out the possibility of a chain reaction occurring inside the devastated reactor,” Kostenko insists. “Once the negotiations finish it will take 15 years to get the funding and then prepare the site for closure. Then we require up to 50 years to remove and process the fuel. Nobody knows how much it will cost.”

A 1993 Franco-British project to build a new shelter has been effectively shelved because it was too expensive at over 1 billion dollars.

Claude Mandil, the G-7’s chief negotiator says it is not yet clear what steps should be taken to make the sarcophagus safe. However, he adds: “We do understand the need to take concrete steps in the near term.” A new study looking at possible short and long-term options funded by the EU’s TACIS programme for aid to the former Soviet CIS states has recently been completed.

This shows that short-term measures such as structural stabilisation of the existing shelter and safety improvements up to 2001 would cost 165-185 million dollars.

Long-term measure, including removal of unstable parts up to 2005 would cost 350-550 million dollars. After that, conversion into a long-term safe structure would cost another 70-135 million dollars.

This reduces the total cost to 435-870 million dollars. However the study came up with no detailed technical options for achieving these targets.

A team of Russian experts has put forward an even cheaper scheme costing 200 million dollars which would take just four years to implement.

In a letter to Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, they propose simply filling the existing sarcophagus with concrete an converting it into a giant monolith. The process would be conducted in stages from the reactor vault outwards and from the lower levels to the higher ones.

The scientists include Academician Nikolai Ponomarev-Stepnoy, first Deputy Director of the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow, and Professor Yevgeny Adamov, Director and General Designer of the Research and Design Institute for Power Engineering (NIKIET), also in Moscow.

The letter refers to growing public anxiety over the safety of the sarcophagus.

“This anxiety is justified, taking into account that some technical decisions adopted in 1986 were forced because of extremely high radiation levels, and were not intended as a long- term solution.”

As scientists and engineers directly involved in the design and construction of Chernobyl, they say they have a “duty” to make some practical proposals.

It is now up to Ukraine to decide which option to choose for the sarcophagus. And this is just one part of the wider problem of Chernobyl and its ultimate fate.

However, closure in 2000 is now looking increasingly unlikely, despite the closure of Unit 1 on 30 November.

Although this was put forward as a political move, it was technically unavoidable as the reactor needs retubing of its core – an expensive and complex operation.

Now Ukraine is actively makes preparations to restart Unit 2 which was closed following a fire in 1991 – a cheaper and simpler alternative to retubing, and one which Ukraine will undoubtedly pursue unless western promises of funding are fulfilled.

UKRAINE: West Given Deadline for Chernobyl Finance

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Andrei Ivanov

MOSCOW, Dec 22 1996 (IPS) - After yet another round of talks with western officials, Ukraine has issued an ultimatum on the proposed closure of Chernobyl.
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