Belarusian nuclear power station must be cheap and efficient

The first Belarusian nuclear power station will be built on the territory already contaminated after the Chernobyl disaster. The building site will be an almost uninhabited village of Krasnaya Palyana that is 40 kilometers form Mahileu. The future atomic power plant will be in 240 kilometers from Minsk. There are only two people living in Krasnaya Playana now – an old couple. The first block is planned to start working in 2016 or 2017, the second – in 2020. But two issues are still undecided: “Who will be building the Belarusian nuclear power plant?” and “Is it necessary to change the place from Krasnaya Palyana to somewhere else?”

20 teachers of three Hrodna universities have sent an appeal to the authorities recently. They asked to build the plant in Hrodna Region explaining it by the fact that other countries will not allow it to be of low standard if it is built in the west of Belarus.

The head if the Nuclear Security institute, professor and Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences Vasil Nestsyarenka thinks that the nuclear power plant should be built abroad – in Smolensk.

Vasіl Nestsyarenka: “We do not have people qualified enough to build and to use the station in our country. We still haven’t decided what will be done with radioactive waste and where the used cartridges will be sent to. Most likely we will be sending them to Russia. That is why it is necessary to build the plant on the basis of Smolensk nuclear power plant. It is only in 400 kilometers and you can easily get the energy from there”.

Smolensk nuclear power plant is not used now. But is has the needed communication system and there are 4 energy blocks already built there. Building such a plant from scratch is a very expensive variant for our country, thinks Vasіl Nestsyarenka. Moreover, the fuel for the station will be bought from those whose project will be used for the plant and whose reactor will be installed there. Taking into account the problem of storing radioactive waste one can guess that the construction will be done by Russians. But there should be a tender anyway.

Vasіl Nestsyarenka: “A tender is advantageous for Belarus. Probably it will be possible to make the construction cheaper”.

The deputy Minister of power engineering Mihail Mihadziuk confirmed that the price should be a decisive factor.

Mіhaіl Mіhadzyuk: “The tender will be given to those who will propose a cheap and efficient project”.

The deputy Minister says that it is still unknown when the tender will take place. The exact place where the station will be built has not been chosen either. But the Ministry sees no other alternative that could be used instead of nuclear power.

An activist of the civil organization “Ecohouse”Andrei Hancharou is a specialist in the problem of influence of radiation on the environment. He also thinks that the tender will be given to those who will propose the cheapest variant. So it does not matter where the station will be built. The main thing is that its construction should be strictly supervised by IAEA and other international organizations. The ecologist thinks there can be no safe nuclear power stations.

Andrei Hancharou: “A safe nuclear power plant is a myth created by the nuclear lobby. Great amounts of money are involved in the field. But there are no safe nuclear power stations”.