nuclear-news

Ukraine doubles down on Russian reactors in nuclear power push

Politico, August 27, 2024, By Gabriel Gavin

Ukraine will push forward with controversial plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on aging Russian-made nuclear reactors despite growing opposition from lawmakers, the country’s energy minister said, amid warnings of a major power crisis this winter.

German Galushchenko told POLITICO that the government still intends to pursue the expansion of the Khmelnytskyi nuclear power station in western Ukraine, buying two VVER-1000 reactors currently in storage in Bulgaria. The proposal has drawn criticism from the ruling party’s own MPs, who say there are quicker ways to help prop up the electricity grid, which has been hit hard by Russian bombing…………………..

Last week, Ukrainian MPs told POLITICO that the government had been forced to acknowledge it did not have sufficient support in the parliament to pass a draft law legislating for the purchase of the reactors.

According to Andrii Zhupanyn, a lawmaker from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People Party, such defeats are “extremely rare.”

MPs questioned whether the mothballed reactors, bought by Bulgaria more than a decade ago, would be able to be quickly brought into service, and whether the funds could be better spent on renewable power and other sources of electricity. The costs, they said, would likely balloon and open the door to corruption………………………………………………………………………….  https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-russia-reactor-khmelnytskyi-nuclear-power-station/

August 28, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, Ukraine