nuclear-news

Environmentalists from several European countries against Belarus – Russia nuclear power deal

Belarus and Russia sign off on Ostrovets nuclear plant in dubious contract Bellona Charles Digges, 13/10-2011 Russian and Belarusian environmentalists are concerned over a contract agreement signed by the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, for construction of the first two nuclear reactors in the Stalinist country, which was signed earlier this week.

Belarus’s state-owned Directorate for Construction of Nuclear Power Plants signed the contract with Atomstoriexport, the foreign construction wing of the Russia’s state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, for the construction of a 2400 megawatt plant of the untested AES 2006 (NPP -2006) design.

The site for the plant is in Ostrovets in the Grodno region, close to Lithuania – which has vociferously protested the building of the nuclear power plan.

The cost with infrastructure is put at $9.4 billion. Russia has pledged financing, but discussions continue on the amounts and terms and Moscow has yet to issue any clear idea of the loans and credits it is willing to extend to Minsk.

The road to building the nuclear power plant has been paved with abuse and arrests of environmental activists and flagrant violations of international conventions requiring Belarus to submit its building plans to neighboring nations for approval.

The vice grip on public opinion against the plant has only been tightened since Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s reelection a little over a year ago.

New contract draws environmental fire The new contract was denounced Wednesday by over 50 environmental organizations from Belarus and Russia as being dubious and opaque.

The groups said in a joint statement that, “[The deal] was struck without regard to the opinion of the public and in violation of applicable regulations to cater for the interests of a narrow circle of people occupying positions in the government and directly in state-controlled corporation Rosatom,” as quoted by the Naviny news agency…..

Plant still in violation of Espoo Convention  The Belarusians broke ground on the plant in March amid a hail of controversy from environmentalists, and an official reproach from the Espoo Convention’s Implementation Committee.

Espoo guarantees countries neighboring a state where an environmentally significant project is underway to review environmental impact assessments of the project and to participate in public discussions of the project in equal measure to the citizens in the country where the project is taking place.

But experts and representatives of the affected countries – which include Lithuania, Russia, Poland, Austria and Ukraine – have still not been presented with the entire version of the environmental impact study for the Ostrovet’s nuclear power plant, which numbers over 3,500 pages……

The International Atomic Enegy Agency on Wednesday further legitimized what is by all accounts an extremely rag-tag project by promising to cooperate with Belarus in the Ostrovets plant’s safe operation, the the Interfax Russian news agency reported……

October 14, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Belarus, opposition to nuclear, politics international