I wonder why they practice distributing iodine pills rather than just distribute them ahead of time?
The article reminds me of fraudulent material certificates at South Korean nuclear plants. As much as I advocate for nuclear power, I am fearful that more disasters will occur due to human error.
That power plant has a LOT of human error, from the news, it appears they made many mistake while building the power plant ( breaking stuff, pouring concrete in the wrong way, ... ) and they did try to hide it. And many incidents after turning the power plant on.
I also think that Nuclear plants are safe, but only when constructed and operated properly, and this doesn't seems the case.
Lithuania was operating an RBMK (Chernobyl-type) reactor just 140 km away from that new Generation III+ design and the majority of Lithuanians opposed the closure of the plant in Ignalina.
And that reactor vessel was never used, it’s actually still lying on the compound of Atommash in Volgodonsk.
Furthermore, transformers have been failing at NPPs in the West as well.
Is this being done in other places close to nuclear plants? The article just mentions that there are allegations of security standards not being followed but who was making the accusations and why?
And why are the Baltic states pulling out of the Belorussian energy network?
If you read the resolution it says that inspectors have not finished everything. But what worries EU is what they already found, and what recommendations they made, which are still not implemented by Belarus. Have you read the resolution? It's only 3 pages long.
Does European parliament has knowledge or competency to analyse plant safety?I guess, not. They are politicians, not scientist.
There are some other organisation that do that job.
Primary one is International Atomic Energy Agency.
Basically, Belarus mostly ignored numerous safety recommendations by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and other parties. There were several accidents during the construction of the power plant, including the one where workers dropped the 330 ton reactor vessel. All that raised many questions about the general quality standards in the Belarusian project.
Lithuania issued several diplomatic notes and protests, requesting to address the safety issues, but there was little cooperation from the other side.
I don't know about China, but I would guess that the economies of scale might have an impact. If you are planning to building 100 power plants, you can probably design your processes such that after the initial production, the further ones could be built much quicker.. as you already have your assembly lines ready and busy.
That reminded me of a Wired article I read many years ago (turns out that it was in 2009) that got me optimistic about China and the development of safe nuclear power:
Stop lying.
All you links you provided do not contains any factual information. Just some unjustified claims.
Do you have a proof that Belarus ignored numerous safety recommendations by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and other parties. If you check IAEA site you would notice that Belarus fulfilled most of their recommendations.
About dropping the 330 ton reactor vessel.That reactor vessel was changed and construction was delayed because of it.
About so called safety issues.
First of all - there is IAEA and other organisations that checks nuclear plant safety.
Lithuanian Ministry of International affairs does not have competency or knowledge to analyse nuclear plant safety. In fact, they do not provide and reliable information, just political claims.
> And why are the Baltic states pulling out of the Belorussian energy network?
To protest the operation of the new power plant. Belarus has no reason to operate it in the first place if they don't have buyers for the electricity. They'll probably exchange with Kalinigrad and mainland Russia anyway and electricity from the Astravets NPP could end up in the Baltics via the Russian grid. It's just that they make it more expensive this way. Latvia wants to ask for origin certificates for Russian electricity, which is kind of silly. How does one discern between a Russian or a Belorussian megawatt?
Also, this is a politically motivated move that actually reduces safety because if the NPP's somehow gets disconnected from the grid and the exchange with the Baltics is shut down as well, they have a loss of coolant accident on their hands. I really hope they have working diesel generators in good condition and good interconnects with Russia and Poland.
Belarus has a lot of reason to operate NPP. First of all - to get cheaper electricity. Secondly - to shutdown a lot of old thermal plant. Thirdly - to spend less on Russian oil and gas. Finally - to decrease CO2.
Several Dutch, German and Luxembourg cities and states have been trying to shut down a Belgian nuclear reactor (Tihange) due to safety concerns, but I don't think it has come to drills yet.
Probably because all countries you've mentioned are members of EU and transparency level is high. Meanwhile Belarus already tried to hide accidents in the power plant while building it and haven't allowed inspection from foreign countries. I assume (and hope) such cases won't happen in Belgium PP.
Lithunia was operating a twin RBMK-1500 (Chernobyl-type) plant just 140 km from the site of the new Generation III+ VVER-1200 plant in Belarus which is magnitudes safer.
The majority of Lithuanians opposed shutting down their own plant in Ignalina which was done on request of the European Union. I think it was even a requirement for their EU membership.
And now just a decade later, the same people are worried about the safety of a far more modern and safer plant as the one that they refused to shut down just 140 km away?
Not very credible at all.
Lithuania is just upset because they invested a lot into natural gas plants and now Belarus is competing with zero-emission electricity from a Generation III+ plant they would love to have themselves.
The data supports the idea that nuclear power is safe, making them /feel/ safe is the next step in widespread adoption, so we have a lot of FUD to undo from the coal lobby. Drills and explicit plans might help from the "there's nothing you can do" angle. I'm not sure, though.
- The RBMK-1500 in the now decommissioned Ignalina Power Plant wasn't built near a big city, unlike the Belarusian power plant.
- Lithuania invested a lot into the safety of the Ignalina Power Plant, installing the latest European safety systems. Partly thanks to EU, yes, but the point is that there was cooperation and safety improvements. Belarus largely ignored the safaty concerns and recommendations by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
- Lithuania didn't invest into natural gas -- this is just factually not true. Elektrenai Power Plant was modernized (well, in fact, they just built a modern one in the same site and closed down the old units) as a strategic "backup" power plant, but the overall capacity was not expanded. If anything, Lithuania has been investing significantly into renewable energy, although perhaps not as much as we would wish.
> The RBMK-1500 in the now decommissioned Ignalina Power Plant wasn't built near a big city, unlike the Belarusian power plant.
So they need to hold in case of accident at the Belarus nuclear plant but it was fine for their own plant in their own country?
> didn't invest into natural gas -- this is just factually not true. Elektrenai Power Plant was modernized as a strategic "backup" power plant, but the overall capacity was not expanded.
So no money was invested into the power plant but somehow it got upgraded for free?
> - The RBMK-1500 in the now decommissioned Ignalina Power Plant wasn't built near a big city, unlike the Belarusian power plant.
Well, it was around 120 km from Vilnius, the new NPP is 60 km from Vilnius which is still sufficient. Leningrad NPP is around 70 km from St. Petersburg.
> Lithuania invested a lot into the safety of the Ignalina Power Plant, installing the latest European safety systems. Partly thanks to EU, yes, but the point is that there was cooperation and safety improvements.
It's still an RBMK and therefore far less safe than any VVER-type reactor.
> Belarus largely ignored the safaty concerns and recommendations by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"For Lithuania, which invested a lot of money in a liquefied natural gas floating storage and regasification unit in Klaipeda a few years ago, the Belarussian nuke plant means it is a potentially cheaper, and definitely cleaner, readily available source of power generation for neighboring nations. In theory, that takes Lithuania out of the market. It’s the reason they are working overtime to get countries not to buy energy generated from it."
You were talking about investing into gas in the context of "zero-emission electricity". Are you seriously drawing equality to gas power plants and an LNG terminal?
The purpose of the Lithuanian LNG terminal was diversification of the gas supplies, thus minimizing the dependence on the Russian gas. It was a very successful project, cutting the gas price significantly and forming an effective gas market i.e. allowing the country to buy gas for the global market price (whoever sells for cheapest). Lithuania did not build new gas power plants, though. Quite the opposite, the strategy in the last decade has been to increase the electricity supply from the renewable energy which resulted in building wind and solar plants.
By the way, just one more point: Generation III+ VVER-1200 reactors and all the systems around them are not the same in different power plants.
VVER-1200 is used in Hanhikivi Nuclear Power Plant built in Finland by Russian Rosatom. This particular power plant uses comprehensive "package" with extra safety features and also a lot of European equipment. Yet, the regulators still identified a considerable list of issues to be addressed.
Belarus, on the other hand, opted for the cheapest "basic" package with the bare minimum and pretty much "winged" the whole construction, ignoring all foreign concerns.
It is perhaps also worth mentioning that the construction of the Hanhikivi plant has not started yet. Indeed according to their latest press release[1] about the situation, they say that 5/15 document batches of the preliminary safety review have been submitted so far. So while this plant is going to be based on the same design, there's going to be an extensive review of all the details and quite possibly a lot of changes to match the regulatory requirements.
Yes, they are constructing infrastructure like office buildings and roads to the power plant area. But none of that is under nuclear safety regulations. They will only start the plant construction once the plans have approval from the regulatory body.
Loviisa plants are VVER, but they too underwent a lot of redesign compared to the Soviet reference to meet safety criteria. That's why they called it "Eastinghouse".
I would carefully argue that there is a lot of fear-mongering from the Lithuanian side because the new NPP poses a great financial risk to Lithuania's investments into liquefied natural gas.
> Belarus, on the other hand, opted for the cheapest "basic" package with the bare minimum and pretty much "winged" the whole construction, ignoring all foreign concerns.
The distance between the plants is not the point - the point is that the Ignalina plant was in a sparsely populated area ~150 km from Vilnius (and subject to EU regulations), while the new plant is only ~60 km from Vilnius (and subject to Belarusian regulations).
There's a French NPP 20 km from Luxembourg and Swiss NPP on a river dividing them from Germany.
Chernobyl was 100km from Kiev (with a population of 2.5m), but Kiev almost did not suffer, as the winds took the fallout in the direction of ... Belarus, where 70% of it landed.
Given that Belarus can reliably claim the title of a country worst affected by nuclear accidents even before they had a NPP of their own, I think they are well positioned to do everything to prevent any such accidents in the future. Holding nation-wide "drills" just for the case looks a bit like demonizing.
Germany has lots of plants near larger cities. Neckarwestheim NPP, for example, is just about 25 km from the city of Stuttgart and it operated a rather old boiling water reactor at the site until 2011.
At this point, only the far more modern Neckarwestheim II is operational at the site.
If I was Belarus and I didn't want to look scary, I would have avoided building a Nuclear Power Plant near the capital of my neighbouring EU country.
A safest place could have been in the direction of Ignalina, the area has low density population both in Belarus, Lithuania and Latvia.
And because the Lithuanians did build a NPP in that position in precedence, they would have lost one of the main point they are complaining about: proximity to the capital
Probably, I'm just saying that there is likely more to this story. I've personally seen the misleading narratives about Belarus and Russia that are all-too-common in Western media.
Belarusian here, actually we don't need this NPP too!
In our non-democratic country all decisions are made by single person and you know his name. The idea of selling electricity to Baltics was imposed by Russia to him. Russia gives loan and builds NPP, and Belarus makes money. Who'd say no to this, right?
Now, when Lithuania makes everything it can to ban transferring electricity from Belarusian NPP into EU, our government has a painful headache. They really don't know how to use this electricity inside Belarus. They also need to build new reserve capacity for NPP.
P.S. 1-st NPP in Belarus/BSSSR were being constructed ~ in 35km (22 miles) from Minsk (capital). But it was cancelled after Chernobyl explosion and converted into gas-fired power plant.
P.P.S Less than mont ago our minister of energy were talking about 2nd and 3rd NPP.
> Belarusian here, actually we don't need this NPP too!
Belarus previously had 99% of its electricity produced by thermal plants. The new NPP will produce 30% of the power in Belarus and seriously reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
For $12'000'000'000 we could build a lot of small-medium size biogas (for agriculture all around the country), wind and hydro plants. Even solar plants can produce a lot of electricity from Marth till October.
Do you know how many sunny days are there in Belarus between March and October?
Also, where do you suggest building a hydro power plant, given that the difference between the highest and the lowest point in the country is about 200 m?
Lived there up until August. It's not nato, it's an insane old man that is turning my country into a concentration camp makes Belarus look like a scary place that needs change.
What nonsense is this? I've never heard anyone say that about Belarus (I hold a EU passport and have lived in a few countries). Sure, there is a problem with their dictator, and many, probably most Belarussians agree. Don't confuse that for 'hating Belarus' or whatever you are trying to imply.
Your comment is not very credible at all. In Lithuania we have democracy and we have people having different opinions. We had actually idea here in Lithuania to build Japanese Atomic Power Plant but because of politics this has not happened. In result we have Russian one 50km from our Capital. If there is one thing Lithuania is upset about it is Belarusian dictatorship not following safety regulations while building atomic power plant.
It doesn't matter much if the country that builds the power plant has a dictatorship or a democracy. Both political systems produced nuclear disasters.
The currently built VVER1200 NPP has pretty good safety:
There are a lot of these (especially the older version of VVER1200) reactors operating in the European Union. Some of them are not too far from international borders. I think a casual Russophobia is the main driving force of the opposing voices instead of actual criticism of the VVER1200. I am not sure if Russia would want to have another nuclear disaster by not taking nuclear safety seriously. It would be really bad for business.
Some places where these VVER blocks are operating or going to operate:
VVER power stations have been mostly installed in Russia and the former Soviet Union, but also in China, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, India, and Iran. Countries that are planning to introduce VVER reactors include Bangladesh, Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey.
What is the scenario that could cause a catastrophic failure in the VVER design or implementation that would result in a disaster that would create a situation to evacuate cities 50kms away?
I am truly interested in this, because I though that VVERs where designed to avoid any sort of disaster. This is why these have a pretty reliable control rod system with safety factor of 5+ and the containment block can survive a Boeing 747 flying into it. Do you think there is a real change that the reactor going super critical and exploding?
> VVER power stations have been mostly installed in Russia and the former Soviet Union, but also in China, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, India, and Iran.
Yeah, they are currently decommissioning all West German nuclear plants (initially announced by the Social-Democrat/Green government before 2005, then delayed by the Christian-Democrat/Social-Democrat government, then finally set to 2022 after Fukushima), but this is much later than 1990, when the Greifswald plant was decommissioned. Of course, that was only 4 years after Chernobyl, that may help explain the decision...
Both Greifswald and Rheinsberg were built according to German standards. East Germany even produced the reactor pressure vessels themselves.
Also, the blocks 5-8 in Greifswald were modern VVER-440/213 which are far more reliable and safe than for example the SWR-69 reactor types used in Neckerwestheim I, Kruemmel and Isar 1 which were all in operation until 2011.
> Not sure about the other ones, but the ones in (East) Germany were decomissioned presto after reunification
Which was completely unjustified. I visited that plant and the engineers there confirmed me that the VVER-440/213 is safer than all the BWR designs in West-Germany.
It is a law of engineering that every engineer will claim his code is the most efficient, his car the best and hist nuclear power plant the safest.
WWER-440 has no closed safety vessel, poor emergency cooling and no redundancy to speak of. It is a PWR design that is maybe on par with a poor western BWR. Also, all the reactors in West Germany were continually retrofitted, especially after the lessons learned due to Czernobyl. That wasn't feasible for a Sowjet design during the breakup of the Sowjet Union (while a lot was built in the GDR, there was also a lot that would have been imported).
Chernobyl is the only nuclear disaster that makes me thing "hm, maybe really nobody should ever build nuclear power plants" and it occurred under a dictatorship. There have been significant disasters (Fukushima and Three Mile Island) under democracies but both of those are pretty tame compared to the ongoing harm wrought by coal and natural gas. Even if you just restrict it to direct health effects of their pollution vs. all negative health effects from Fukushima, at worst Fukushima over its lifetime likely cost fewer lives per megawatt-hour than an average coal plant.
(Of course, things like solar and wind are still generally preferable, if you can store the power effectively.)
While we can argue about the extent of the evacuation and the extended timeline for return to evacuated areas, the fact that there was an evacuation shouldn't be up for debate. When uncontrolled explosions happen to buildings holding nuclear reactors, regardless of the nature of those explosions, the immediate area should be evacuated.
In fully half of the INES level 7 the leading cause of death was the evacuation. Designed safety systems are really good. Evacuating should not be an unthinking decision.
Fukushima ended with very little contamination over land due to the prevailing weather at the time. But if winds and rain hadn't cooperated as nicely, things would have been more serious. So I wouldn't say evacuations were pointless. However, keeping the area off limits for as long as they did was.
Because evacuations are not done on perfect hindsight. They are done with limited and often incorrect live information. When building are collapsing atop a reactor, when nobody knows for sure what is happening inside, it is only reasonable to start moving people away.
Chernobyl had RBMK, not VVER, that's the entire point GP is making. Reducing Chernobyl/Fukushima/TMI to the difference in political systems is derailing the conversation and ignores the actual causal chain of each event.
I agree that INES Level 7 accident (well, a disaster at this level) is very unlikely and VVER-1200 generally ought to be matching the quality of the Western designs at this point. Even if the level 7 disaster would happen, the 50 km distance is not great and it's "living on the edge", but it ought to be just about enough for the population to be okay.
However, there are some points you miss:
- There is a lot of space for smaller accidents which can happen, including nuclear fuel leaks. Belarusian Power Plant is very close to River Neris and, as far as I know, uses its water for cooling. River Neris goes through Lithuanian capital Vilnius and there is a great concern that accidents can contaminate the water.
- See my point in a post bellow about the nuclear power plants not being built equal, even if they use the same reactor technology.
- Both political systems produced nuclear disasters, but accidents above INES Level 5 only occurred in the Soviet Union; I am not including Fukushima, because its cause was a natural disaster: earthquake followed by tsunami (and their 1960s tech was still holding in the immediate aftermath). Poor quality standards, general attitude to safety, disregard to procedures, etc -- these are the common problems in such political systems like the Soviet one. Also, many of the accidents in the West occurred in 1950s when the nuclear technology was still in its early days. So, no, I don't draw the equality between different political systems in the context of nuclear safety, although perhaps it shouldn't be overestimated either.
> River Neris goes through Lithuanian capital Vilnius and there is a great concern that accidents can contaminate the water.
A power plant needs access to water for cooling. Belarus is a land-locked country without access to sea, so all of its rivers also flow through other countries. Its watershed is divided between Nemunas, Daugava, and Dnieper, which have Vilnius, Riga, and Kiev situated on them. It seems like there's no place you can build a power plant there without risking a potential contamination of water which would then run through a capital of another state.
Also, Lithuanian Ignalina power plant was using the water eventually getting into Daugava river, running through Riga, a capital of the neighboring Latvia. I can't see why Lithuania itself thinks it's ok to risk potential contamination of water of a neighboring country capital, but not ok when someone else is doing the same to them.
You have a point here, but I think the proximity is still concerning: compare the distance between Ignalina and Riga with the distance between Belarus' Power Plant and Vilnius.
It is worth mentioning that the UN commission has decided that the location of the Belarusian power plant was chosen in violation of the Espoo Convention. That's why it's not OK.
Leningrad NPP is at about the same distance from Saint Petersburg, Kursk NPP from Kursk, etc. There's a power plant in the suburbs of Antwerp, another one in Lyon, another two near Toronto, etc. There's a French NPP 20 km from Luxembourg and a Swiss NPP on German border. What is your point here?
In the Soviet and other totalitarian systems the government could build wherever the hell they wanted, so their decision making is really far from exemplary. I have no idea why would you build an NPP so close to densely populated areas these days, if you have other options. I can see the issue in a smaller and densely populated country like Netherlands, but not in France which is quite more spacious.
A hundred years ago you could happily buy all sorts of drugs in your local pharmacy, but it doesn't mean it was healthy for people. We came a long way with the safety standards and general attitude towards safety. So, the point here is: embrace it instead of looking for excuses. There really were better sites to build the Belarusian NPP, but they built it in violation of the Espoo convention instead of embracing safety and cooperation with your neighbours.
P.S. It is an official recommendation by the Association of Regulators of Western Europe (WENRA) to avoid building NPPs closer than 100 km to the big cities. WENRA was established in 1999, though, so it's relatively recent.
I don't know whether Belarus signed the Espoo convention, or is a member of Association of Regulators of Western Europe, etc.. If your point is, "why don't my neighbours play according to my rules", I can see where you're coming from, but not necessarily agree.
Belarus suffered the most from Chernobyl accident, with 70% of fallout in its territory. And Chernobyl NPP wasn't even in their country. I might think that they are well positioned to do everything they can to prevent any nuclear accident happening in their NPP.
Leningrad NPP close to Saint Petersburg is inside same Russia. same with Kursk. Russia can do whatever they want inside their country. biggest issue I see here is that NPP is built close to other countries' border, very close to capital of other country despite all neighbor's objections.
> Also, Lithuanian Ignalina power plant was using the water eventually getting into Daugava river, running through Riga, a capital of the neighboring Latvia. I can't see why Lithuania itself thinks it's ok to risk potential contamination of water of a neighboring country capital, but not ok when someone else is doing the same to them.
I guess under Soviet regime Lithuanians and Latvians didn’t have any say in the matter where the nuclear power plant must be built (or be built at all).
I guess you must have a secret plan none of us are aware of on how to transition the entire country off nuclear power and diversify its energy sources overnight.
Oh and polluting rivers being the only factor in this matter is not strawman? Changing entire country’s energy infrastructure takes decades, let alone absorbing that economically. Especially when you’re a newly formed country that at the same time needs to change every other aspect of itself to move from socialist to capitalist economy, society and infrastructure serving them.
Given the circumstances, I’d call 19 years a great success in this case.
> I guess under Soviet regime Lithuanians and Latvians didn’t have any say in the matter where the nuclear power plant must be built (or be built at all).
Why didn't they shut off the plant then right after the Iron Curtain fell? In fact, they actually opposed the closure of that very plant.
> What is the scenario that could cause a catastrophic failure in the VVER design or implementation that would result in a disaster that would create a situation to evacuate cities 50kms away?
There is Neris river that is both near Astravets NPP and running through Vilnius - so it is not only 50 kms away and adds other risks.
Many years ago, there were discussions here in Luxembourg to build a nuclear power plant together with the French in the east of Luxembourg. The "greens" at that time were against it, so it was not being build.
But the french build it then in France just 10km from the border (the biggest at that time with 4 reactors), and it's closer to our capital then your nuclear power plant to yours.
Well, look at the Russian space program. There haven't been any fatal accidents in the Russian/Soviet space program since 1971 as opposed to the US where the last fatal accident happened 20 years ago (Columbia accident).
Excuse me, but the Russians tried to compete with the US moon program. Their rockets were so unsafe they killed one of their most famous cosmonauts (friend of Gagarin, who told him not to go) and finally gave up. He knew it was a one-way trip, but boarded because patriotism.
The problem with communist countries is that the Party and its narrative always comes first, and the "little people" are last.
Columbia had 28 missions - 28 launches and 27 successful landings.
There has been no Russian space vessel, that has been launched more than 1 time into space. Even Buran space shuttle had only 1 mission, before it was abandoned.
I wouldn't comment on quality of cars, as I do not own any Russian car - and I also do not own any nuclear submarine(yet), but what we know is that Russians can't properly build bunker for their own fuhrer and Nuclear plant is less significant project.
> In result we have Russian one 50km from our Capital.
And? You've been running one of the unsafest reactor designs in history and you were actually opposed to shutting it off.
You just built a brand new LNG terminal in Klaipeda [1] and, of course, having such a big plant in Belarus generating 2400 MW of carbon-free energy will mean that electricity production from LNG is getting a fierce competition.
I'd argue that Chernobyl, which was basically a man-made disaster that stemmed from a drill, is quite fundamentally different from getting hit by the fourth highest magnitude earthquake known to man.
For me, the man-made disaster is the amount of dirty coal the Germany burns, after shutting down their nuclear power plants. And from pressure by the Greens, no less!
Man made disaster is the prices for electricity we pay in Germany, while France is happy generating nuclear power and pays 30% less.
A state law (2015-992, from 2015, the "loi relative à la transition énergétique pour la croissance verte") states that the part of nuke-produced electricity must fall to less than 50% in 2025, from 72% then, and that renewables must replace it.
In France nuke-power is backed by gas (which produced 10,3% of gridpower in 2017).
Even for a strong democracy it is tough to sustain the blow of a magnitude 9.0 earthquake followed by tsunami. And no, reactors/technology in Fukushima were not new, they were from 1960s.
That's not true. All of Fukushima reactors were constructed before Chernobyl's reactors. Fukushima's reactors are based on a 50's design by GE/Westinghouse.
They are very old to the point where they could be labelled ancient.
It seems like the could be plenty of reasons to want to maintain a nuclear power plant, and be concerned with safety about others, or even all of them.
They are mostly concerned with the incidents that Belarus tried to hide during construction, showing that corners have been cut and the safety of the plant is in questionable state. A fair thing to be concerned about.
Because Lithuania has very good economical reasons to be upset about this plant:
Quote:
"Lithuania invested almost 500 million euros in their aspiration of being an LNG supplier for an EU supposedly weening neighbors from Russia. Since then, their EU partners, led by Germany, collaborated with Gazprom to build a second natural gas pipeline to Germany, undercutting Lithuania."
your comment sounds like you aren't familiar with those places. Anyway, one thing is to bear risk and harvest associated benefits, and another is just to bear the even higher risks without any benefits. Also the way the prevalent wind goes there the old Lithuanian plant was threatening mostly Latvia, while the current Belarusian plant mostly threatens Lithuania and the most populous region of it at that. I don't see how Lithuanians couldn't be upset by that development. Though i don't think drills or anything would help them much if something happens at the plant - any release would hit Vilnus in a matter of a couple of hours.
Lithuania closed their own plant with pressure from EU, and later voted down a proposal to build a new NPP instead. I guess that gave them a feeling of "nuclear safety". Now they lost that safety through no fault of their own, and they can't have it back, so they are upset.
I only hope Lithuania will take it to a good direction: if there is and would never be any nuclear safety anyway, maybe they can at least enjoy the benefits of NPP by building their own.
Lithuania is too small to have any nuclear industry of their own. They would have to depend on some big nuclear power in supply chain and spent fuel processing. And Big Nuclear is like Big Oil - very corrupting to your society. What is going to work for them is combination of solar&wind - that combination works great on Baltic - plus natural gas with diversifying supply from Russia with LNG from US, Saudis, etc. plus high power integration into EU power grid which they have already done.
Honestly, whatever Estonia or Lithuania do would hardly directly affect total greenhouse gas emissions of our civilization. Given local geopolitics their first priority is survival and prosperity as independent states. If they can do it while getting and staying "clean" - and i think they can do it by using more solar&wind (and that will even enhance their independence) - great, and if they have to burn some natural gas - nobody will really notice given their size especially considering that natural gas is the cleanest energy source among the "dirty". While getting nuclear in any way for them would mean losing a bit of independence (that closing of their own NPP at the will of EU is a clear example that your nuclear industry decisions aren't really yours and are actually subject to the will of the bigger powers).
Well, people in Latvia were very upset about plant in Ignalina - not because of the distance from Riga, but because of a very close distance from border of Latvia(because not all of them are living in Riga).
I guess, this is a very political topic and that has nothing to do with technical parameters of plants, because Belarus is constantly polluting rivers and that pollution is coming through into neighbouring countries. And there is nothing that these countries can do about and power plant belongs to the same issue.
Yeah, your commenting activity doesn't seem to be Russian troll at all to readers of NH, but for someone who has to encounter similar active trolls in Baltic sources, this doesn't seem like credible non-troll activity(paid or unpaid - doesn't matter). So, under a threat of being blocked here, I think, that it should be noted that some of the behaviour of cbmuser(and accompanying friends and "opponents") ticks most of the flags of what in Baltics is known under a name of "Russian troll factory", where they are actively swarming on specific topics.
What you probably mean is that this user is often active in similar topics. What your comment might be interpreted to say is that cbmuser is paid to participate, as in troll farming. Whatever you meant, let's try and steer away from what might be seen as inflamatory remarks.
Not sure if that's typical, but my perspective is this: I know almost nothing about energy infrastructure, and even less about local conditions and history in that field. I do tend to lend credibility to HN users who seem to have detailed knowledge, like cbmuser. However, I also see that they are often engaged in heated discussions where basic statements of facts are disputed on both sides.
With that in mind, I don't see why it would have to be inflammatory to ask cbmuser if a) they work in that field b) there are potential conflicts of interest and c) what their general outlook is. Even if there is a conflict of interest, that wouldn't invalidate their positions, of course, it's just something to keep in mind when reading.
Edit: you're right dmos62, this comment was a bit trite. I can't delete it anymore now. Thank you for clarifying anyway!
I don't think it's inflamatory to investigate some user. We all tend to lend credibility to those we perceive as having detailed knowledge.
What I was talking about is that the topic of this thread is unfortunately inflammatory due to regional politics, so we should be careful to maintain a standard of discussion.
I'll say it, that user reguritates rhetoric and talking points that happen to be aligned with a multi-billion lobbying industry, but they're always packaged in social media comment sized appealing package.
Very few on HN actually work in the energy industry and so anything that "sounds about right" gets accepted if the person says it confidently. Unlike anything related to computer languages, where there are people who also know the topic techncially to debate.
It's a case of "those who speak do not know, those who know do not speak"
because to do the topic justice would be a longer comment than anyone wants to read, and it cbmuser's ignorant comment is sure to be at the top.
Insinuations of astroturfing and shillage are not allowed on HN without evidence. If you want to know more about why, it has been explained countless times over many years—see the links below. The short version is that internet users have an overwhelming tendency to imagine this into other people's comments, so there needs to be something objective to go on, and someone else having a different opinion is not objective evidence.
Nah, I disagree with him a lot, too, but I recognise the nickname from other communities. He's just a dude who's very passionate about nuclear power and, iirc, holds some other views I strongly disagree with. But he's entitled to his views and opinions. I'm much more annoyed by the people who vote his comments to the top :)
You can't attack another user like that on HN. We ban accounts that do this, so please don't do it again. Instead, if you're worried about abuse, please follow the site guidelines and email us so we can look into it.
Lithuanians hardly have a perception of Belarusians as "scary foreigners" due to enormous amount of shared history, culture and even cuisine. It's foreign in the sense an Irish is foreign to an English, or a Norwegian to a Swede.
Lithuanians did live under the not dissimilar regime for half a century though and they understand how safety is done in such circumstances. The power station had numerous incidents during construction and commissioning, including human fatalities. Can't blame them for taking precautions.
Let’s think from other side. It’s a great geopolitical move. Russia build a power plant almost on the EU border. It will be paid by Belarus. That’s even cooler. Now imagine some bad event going in Vilnius. Like some NATO conference. 30 minutes before it radioactive water comes through the river Neris and the city must be evacuated. Conference didn’t happen. I even don’t see a good way for city evacuation. There is not enough road capacity to the west. Like 2 roads with 2 lanes each. During serious nuclear disaster the whole city is sitting ducks, there is not place to hide and no road to run.
It's a bit of a stretch, isn't it? :) In addition to the safety concerns, you are absolutely right that it was also a Russian geopolitical project, though, just with more realistic and with more practical objectives.
One of the objectives was an attempt to make the Baltic States dependant on the Russian (well, Belarusian, but due to political realities it doesn't quite matter) energy supplies by flooding them with cheap electricity and discouraging them from diversification. Such dependency would give some means to make political influence to the Baltics. This was in addition to another objective of making Belarus even more economically reliant on Russia (in this case, very cheap but large loans given to build the power plant).
However, I don't think they managed to gain anything in the Baltics, because of a robust strategic response from the Baltic States: 1) they diversified their electricity supply with more links to Scandinavia and Poland (see NordBalt, EstLink and LitPol projects) 2) created an open and well functioning electricity market (see Nord Pool) 3) eventually decided to boycott the electricity from the Belarus Power Plant, undermining its economic basis.
Russia succeeded in tightening the economic grip on Belarus, but in terms of economic dependency, things are already pretty grim there..
Some nuclear tech choices are geopolitically motivated. Romania licensed CANDU specifically because its then communist leader did not trust the Soviets after the invasion if Hungary and Czechoslovakia. They also have or had domestic heavy water production and domestic nuclear fuel production.
You’re not thinking. You’re fantasizing and projecting. In your fantasy you basically stripped the Russians of all humanity to the point where they would intentionally poison a river with highly dangerous nuclear waste to stop a NATO conference and basically kill off an entire city.
Rather than these complicated conspiracy theories, a far simpler explanation is that Belarus needs energy and Russia has a nuclear power industry. Russia have sold these power plants all over the world, not just next to the EU border. If Russia really wanted to do something so horrific they don’t need to go through all the steps of building a complicated nuclear power plant to do it. They have plenty of weapons in their arsenal to do it already.
Well, these guys like poisoning bad people in foreign countries with weird substances. So dropping couple radioactive barrels into a river does not sound that unrealistic to me. And it then makes a thing called “accident”. Using weapon is an “attack”, what is totally uncool nowadays.
Targeted actions against individuals is bread and butter covert operations for states. Just ask the CIA or the Mossad. I don't think you can use the evidence of targeted attacks to suggest that a state will engage in crimes against humanity.
> In your fantasy you basically stripped the Russians of all humanity to the point where they would intentionally poison a river with highly dangerous nuclear waste to stop a NATO conference and basically kill off an entire city.
That's true, Russians only intentionally poison individuals and not entire cities.
> In your fantasy you basically stripped the Russians of all humanity to the point where they would intentionally poison a river with highly dangerous nuclear waste... and kill off an entire city.
> In your fantasy you basically stripped the Russians of all humanity to the point where they would intentionally poison a river with highly dangerous nuclear waste... and kill off an entire city.
Yep, good people wouldn't never, ever, think about doing something like that. We are 100% safe.
Perhaos Lithuania has valid fears about the stability of the country given the unrest over dictator Lukashenko’s sham elections.
The region doesn’t exactly a stellar reputation in honesty after nuclear incidents. Japan was instantly honeat about Fukushima. Russia still lies about Chernobyl.
They acknowledge it now but when it hit there were non-stop blog posts going viral about how it's impossible for Fukushima to suffer a meltdown due to the design. The Japanese government was restricting information so tightly that there was no refutation of this misinformation.
Chernobyl came pretty close, if you read whatever factual information is available about the progression of the accident there were at least two moments where very small changes made all the difference.
It’s fun to see how Lithuanians fucked up their own nuclear power plant, basically murdered their own cheap energy production, then had to buy electricity from other countries and stage drills to pretend they closed their own station “for good”.
152 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 202 ms ] threadThe article reminds me of fraudulent material certificates at South Korean nuclear plants. As much as I advocate for nuclear power, I am fearful that more disasters will occur due to human error.
I also think that Nuclear plants are safe, but only when constructed and operated properly, and this doesn't seems the case.
- tanks imploding: https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/1288877/belarusian-... - transformers exploding: https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/1272842/incident-re... - broke a reactor vessel: https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2017-05-rosatom-repl...
And that reactor vessel was never used, it’s actually still lying on the compound of Atommash in Volgodonsk.
Furthermore, transformers have been failing at NPPs in the West as well.
The construction of the plant was problematic, and it had several incidents while running.
You can't trust a government that tries to cover up every incidents that happens and could have international repercussions.
And why are the Baltic states pulling out of the Belorussian energy network?
I find the article pretty sparse on details.
> https://twitter.com/RosatomGlobal/status/1361996208928153604
Lithuania issued several diplomatic notes and protests, requesting to address the safety issues, but there was little cooperation from the other side.
I wonder if the Chinese are just more efficient at this or do they cut corners as well?
Let a Thousand Reactors Bloom
https://www.wired.com/2004/09/china-5/
Do you have a proof that Belarus ignored numerous safety recommendations by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and other parties. If you check IAEA site you would notice that Belarus fulfilled most of their recommendations.
About dropping the 330 ton reactor vessel.That reactor vessel was changed and construction was delayed because of it.
About so called safety issues. First of all - there is IAEA and other organisations that checks nuclear plant safety. Lithuanian Ministry of International affairs does not have competency or knowledge to analyse nuclear plant safety. In fact, they do not provide and reliable information, just political claims.
To protest the operation of the new power plant. Belarus has no reason to operate it in the first place if they don't have buyers for the electricity. They'll probably exchange with Kalinigrad and mainland Russia anyway and electricity from the Astravets NPP could end up in the Baltics via the Russian grid. It's just that they make it more expensive this way. Latvia wants to ask for origin certificates for Russian electricity, which is kind of silly. How does one discern between a Russian or a Belorussian megawatt?
https://www.reuters.com/article/litgrid-belarus-idUSKBN27J2C...
Also, this is a politically motivated move that actually reduces safety because if the NPP's somehow gets disconnected from the grid and the exchange with the Baltics is shut down as well, they have a loss of coolant accident on their hands. I really hope they have working diesel generators in good condition and good interconnects with Russia and Poland.
The majority of Lithuanians opposed shutting down their own plant in Ignalina which was done on request of the European Union. I think it was even a requirement for their EU membership.
And now just a decade later, the same people are worried about the safety of a far more modern and safer plant as the one that they refused to shut down just 140 km away?
Not very credible at all.
Lithuania is just upset because they invested a lot into natural gas plants and now Belarus is competing with zero-emission electricity from a Generation III+ plant they would love to have themselves.
- The RBMK-1500 in the now decommissioned Ignalina Power Plant wasn't built near a big city, unlike the Belarusian power plant.
- Lithuania invested a lot into the safety of the Ignalina Power Plant, installing the latest European safety systems. Partly thanks to EU, yes, but the point is that there was cooperation and safety improvements. Belarus largely ignored the safaty concerns and recommendations by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
- Lithuania didn't invest into natural gas -- this is just factually not true. Elektrenai Power Plant was modernized (well, in fact, they just built a modern one in the same site and closed down the old units) as a strategic "backup" power plant, but the overall capacity was not expanded. If anything, Lithuania has been investing significantly into renewable energy, although perhaps not as much as we would wish.
So they need to hold in case of accident at the Belarus nuclear plant but it was fine for their own plant in their own country?
> didn't invest into natural gas -- this is just factually not true. Elektrenai Power Plant was modernized as a strategic "backup" power plant, but the overall capacity was not expanded.
So no money was invested into the power plant but somehow it got upgraded for free?
Well, it was around 120 km from Vilnius, the new NPP is 60 km from Vilnius which is still sufficient. Leningrad NPP is around 70 km from St. Petersburg.
> Lithuania invested a lot into the safety of the Ignalina Power Plant, installing the latest European safety systems. Partly thanks to EU, yes, but the point is that there was cooperation and safety improvements.
It's still an RBMK and therefore far less safe than any VVER-type reactor.
> Belarus largely ignored the safaty concerns and recommendations by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The IAEA was on site and inspected the plant:
> https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/iaea-delivers-inir-miss...
There is currently also a EU nuclear expert group at the site:
> https://twitter.com/RosatomGlobal/status/1361996208928153604
- Lithuania didn't invest into natural gas -- this is just factually not true.
Quoting: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2020/04/28/eu-nuclear...
"For Lithuania, which invested a lot of money in a liquefied natural gas floating storage and regasification unit in Klaipeda a few years ago, the Belarussian nuke plant means it is a potentially cheaper, and definitely cleaner, readily available source of power generation for neighboring nations. In theory, that takes Lithuania out of the market. It’s the reason they are working overtime to get countries not to buy energy generated from it."
Wikipedia source on the LNG terminal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaip%C4%97da_LNG_FSRU
The purpose of the Lithuanian LNG terminal was diversification of the gas supplies, thus minimizing the dependence on the Russian gas. It was a very successful project, cutting the gas price significantly and forming an effective gas market i.e. allowing the country to buy gas for the global market price (whoever sells for cheapest). Lithuania did not build new gas power plants, though. Quite the opposite, the strategy in the last decade has been to increase the electricity supply from the renewable energy which resulted in building wind and solar plants.
VVER-1200 is used in Hanhikivi Nuclear Power Plant built in Finland by Russian Rosatom. This particular power plant uses comprehensive "package" with extra safety features and also a lot of European equipment. Yet, the regulators still identified a considerable list of issues to be addressed.
Belarus, on the other hand, opted for the cheapest "basic" package with the bare minimum and pretty much "winged" the whole construction, ignoring all foreign concerns.
1: https://www.fennovoima.fi/en/news/quarterly-update-basic-des...
Looks like it has: https://twitter.com/PekkaTMakinen/status/1354383491937538051
Also, Finland already has a plant with two VVER reactors built in cooperation with the Soviet Union:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loviisa_Nuclear_Power_Plant
Loviisa plants are VVER, but they too underwent a lot of redesign compared to the Soviet reference to meet safety criteria. That's why they called it "Eastinghouse".
Good article on the issue: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2020/04/28/eu-nuclear...
This is normal for any plant. Doesn't mean that VVER is less safe.
Do you have a source for that claim?
Chernobyl was 100km from Kiev (with a population of 2.5m), but Kiev almost did not suffer, as the winds took the fallout in the direction of ... Belarus, where 70% of it landed.
Given that Belarus can reliably claim the title of a country worst affected by nuclear accidents even before they had a NPP of their own, I think they are well positioned to do everything to prevent any such accidents in the future. Holding nation-wide "drills" just for the case looks a bit like demonizing.
At this point, only the far more modern Neckarwestheim II is operational at the site.
A safest place could have been in the direction of Ignalina, the area has low density population both in Belarus, Lithuania and Latvia.
And because the Lithuanians did build a NPP in that position in precedence, they would have lost one of the main point they are complaining about: proximity to the capital
In our non-democratic country all decisions are made by single person and you know his name. The idea of selling electricity to Baltics was imposed by Russia to him. Russia gives loan and builds NPP, and Belarus makes money. Who'd say no to this, right?
Now, when Lithuania makes everything it can to ban transferring electricity from Belarusian NPP into EU, our government has a painful headache. They really don't know how to use this electricity inside Belarus. They also need to build new reserve capacity for NPP.
P.S. 1-st NPP in Belarus/BSSSR were being constructed ~ in 35km (22 miles) from Minsk (capital). But it was cancelled after Chernobyl explosion and converted into gas-fired power plant.
P.P.S Less than mont ago our minister of energy were talking about 2nd and 3rd NPP.
Belarus previously had 99% of its electricity produced by thermal plants. The new NPP will produce 30% of the power in Belarus and seriously reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
See: https://twitter.com/RosatomGlobal/status/1323580827377258507
Also, where do you suggest building a hydro power plant, given that the difference between the highest and the lowest point in the country is about 200 m?
The currently built VVER1200 NPP has pretty good safety:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VVER#Safety_features
There are a lot of these (especially the older version of VVER1200) reactors operating in the European Union. Some of them are not too far from international borders. I think a casual Russophobia is the main driving force of the opposing voices instead of actual criticism of the VVER1200. I am not sure if Russia would want to have another nuclear disaster by not taking nuclear safety seriously. It would be really bad for business.
Some places where these VVER blocks are operating or going to operate:
VVER power stations have been mostly installed in Russia and the former Soviet Union, but also in China, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, India, and Iran. Countries that are planning to introduce VVER reactors include Bangladesh, Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey.
What is the scenario that could cause a catastrophic failure in the VVER design or implementation that would result in a disaster that would create a situation to evacuate cities 50kms away?
I am truly interested in this, because I though that VVERs where designed to avoid any sort of disaster. This is why these have a pretty reliable control rod system with safety factor of 5+ and the containment block can survive a Boeing 747 flying into it. Do you think there is a real change that the reactor going super critical and exploding?
Not sure about the other ones, but the ones in (East) Germany were decomissioned presto after reunification: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greifswald_Nuclear_Power_Plant
VVER reactors have an overall good safety record so far, the trouble is this one seems botched.
Also, the blocks 5-8 in Greifswald were modern VVER-440/213 which are far more reliable and safe than for example the SWR-69 reactor types used in Neckerwestheim I, Kruemmel and Isar 1 which were all in operation until 2011.
Which was completely unjustified. I visited that plant and the engineers there confirmed me that the VVER-440/213 is safer than all the BWR designs in West-Germany.
WWER-440 has no closed safety vessel, poor emergency cooling and no redundancy to speak of. It is a PWR design that is maybe on par with a poor western BWR. Also, all the reactors in West Germany were continually retrofitted, especially after the lessons learned due to Czernobyl. That wasn't feasible for a Sowjet design during the breakup of the Sowjet Union (while a lot was built in the GDR, there was also a lot that would have been imported).
(Of course, things like solar and wind are still generally preferable, if you can store the power effectively.)
In fully half of the INES level 7 the leading cause of death was the evacuation. Designed safety systems are really good. Evacuating should not be an unthinking decision.
For anyone reading along here, this is drawn from a sample size of 2. (Fukushima and Chernobyl)
However, there are some points you miss:
- There is a lot of space for smaller accidents which can happen, including nuclear fuel leaks. Belarusian Power Plant is very close to River Neris and, as far as I know, uses its water for cooling. River Neris goes through Lithuanian capital Vilnius and there is a great concern that accidents can contaminate the water.
- See my point in a post bellow about the nuclear power plants not being built equal, even if they use the same reactor technology.
- Both political systems produced nuclear disasters, but accidents above INES Level 5 only occurred in the Soviet Union; I am not including Fukushima, because its cause was a natural disaster: earthquake followed by tsunami (and their 1960s tech was still holding in the immediate aftermath). Poor quality standards, general attitude to safety, disregard to procedures, etc -- these are the common problems in such political systems like the Soviet one. Also, many of the accidents in the West occurred in 1950s when the nuclear technology was still in its early days. So, no, I don't draw the equality between different political systems in the context of nuclear safety, although perhaps it shouldn't be overestimated either.
A power plant needs access to water for cooling. Belarus is a land-locked country without access to sea, so all of its rivers also flow through other countries. Its watershed is divided between Nemunas, Daugava, and Dnieper, which have Vilnius, Riga, and Kiev situated on them. It seems like there's no place you can build a power plant there without risking a potential contamination of water which would then run through a capital of another state.
Also, Lithuanian Ignalina power plant was using the water eventually getting into Daugava river, running through Riga, a capital of the neighboring Latvia. I can't see why Lithuania itself thinks it's ok to risk potential contamination of water of a neighboring country capital, but not ok when someone else is doing the same to them.
It is worth mentioning that the UN commission has decided that the location of the Belarusian power plant was chosen in violation of the Espoo Convention. That's why it's not OK.
A hundred years ago you could happily buy all sorts of drugs in your local pharmacy, but it doesn't mean it was healthy for people. We came a long way with the safety standards and general attitude towards safety. So, the point here is: embrace it instead of looking for excuses. There really were better sites to build the Belarusian NPP, but they built it in violation of the Espoo convention instead of embracing safety and cooperation with your neighbours.
P.S. It is an official recommendation by the Association of Regulators of Western Europe (WENRA) to avoid building NPPs closer than 100 km to the big cities. WENRA was established in 1999, though, so it's relatively recent.
Belarus suffered the most from Chernobyl accident, with 70% of fallout in its territory. And Chernobyl NPP wasn't even in their country. I might think that they are well positioned to do everything they can to prevent any nuclear accident happening in their NPP.
that is main issue.
I guess under Soviet regime Lithuanians and Latvians didn’t have any say in the matter where the nuclear power plant must be built (or be built at all).
Given the circumstances, I’d call 19 years a great success in this case.
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignalina_Nuclear_Power_Plant#S...
Why didn't they shut off the plant then right after the Iron Curtain fell? In fact, they actually opposed the closure of that very plant.
There is Neris river that is both near Astravets NPP and running through Vilnius - so it is not only 50 kms away and adds other risks.
I hope for the best but stuff like this does not give much confidence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astravets_Nuclear_Power_Plant#...
But the french build it then in France just 10km from the border (the biggest at that time with 4 reactors), and it's closer to our capital then your nuclear power plant to yours.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_ac...
Excuse me, but the Russians tried to compete with the US moon program. Their rockets were so unsafe they killed one of their most famous cosmonauts (friend of Gagarin, who told him not to go) and finally gave up. He knew it was a one-way trip, but boarded because patriotism.
The problem with communist countries is that the Party and its narrative always comes first, and the "little people" are last.
I wouldn't comment on quality of cars, as I do not own any Russian car - and I also do not own any nuclear submarine(yet), but what we know is that Russians can't properly build bunker for their own fuhrer and Nuclear plant is less significant project.
And? You've been running one of the unsafest reactor designs in history and you were actually opposed to shutting it off.
You just built a brand new LNG terminal in Klaipeda [1] and, of course, having such a big plant in Belarus generating 2400 MW of carbon-free energy will mean that electricity production from LNG is getting a fierce competition.
> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaip%C4%97da_LNG_FSRU
So the man-made disaster consisted in allowing to build something like this in an area where there are earthquakes so big.
Man made disaster is the prices for electricity we pay in Germany, while France is happy generating nuclear power and pays 30% less.
A state law (2015-992, from 2015, the "loi relative à la transition énergétique pour la croissance verte") states that the part of nuke-produced electricity must fall to less than 50% in 2025, from 72% then, and that renewables must replace it.
In France nuke-power is backed by gas (which produced 10,3% of gridpower in 2017).
The sole reactor currently planned (Flamanville-3) is a complete disaster, more than 10 years behind schedule and 4x overbudget. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan...
That's not true. All of Fukushima reactors were constructed before Chernobyl's reactors. Fukushima's reactors are based on a 50's design by GE/Westinghouse.
They are very old to the point where they could be labelled ancient.
Given that Belarus is a corrupt authoritarian regime that’s teetering on the edge, I’d say that’s a fair concern.
> https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/iaea-delivers-inir-miss...
> https://twitter.com/RosatomGlobal/status/1360129094906707975
There are EU nuclear inspectors on the site:
> https://twitter.com/RosatomGlobal/status/1360129094906707975
Quote:
"Lithuania invested almost 500 million euros in their aspiration of being an LNG supplier for an EU supposedly weening neighbors from Russia. Since then, their EU partners, led by Germany, collaborated with Gazprom to build a second natural gas pipeline to Germany, undercutting Lithuania."
> https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2020/04/28/eu-nuclear...
I only hope Lithuania will take it to a good direction: if there is and would never be any nuclear safety anyway, maybe they can at least enjoy the benefits of NPP by building their own.
Lithuania can opt for small nuclear reactors like Estonia did:
> https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/No-time-to-waste-in-...
I guess, this is a very political topic and that has nothing to do with technical parameters of plants, because Belarus is constantly polluting rivers and that pollution is coming through into neighbouring countries. And there is nothing that these countries can do about and power plant belongs to the same issue.
Yeah, your commenting activity doesn't seem to be Russian troll at all to readers of NH, but for someone who has to encounter similar active trolls in Baltic sources, this doesn't seem like credible non-troll activity(paid or unpaid - doesn't matter). So, under a threat of being blocked here, I think, that it should be noted that some of the behaviour of cbmuser(and accompanying friends and "opponents") ticks most of the flags of what in Baltics is known under a name of "Russian troll factory", where they are actively swarming on specific topics.
Or they may be less confident when they don't manage a plant.
In any case they may be right even if they didn't apply their own precepts ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque )
> Lithuania is just upset because they invested a lot into natural gas plants
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_motive
With that in mind, I don't see why it would have to be inflammatory to ask cbmuser if a) they work in that field b) there are potential conflicts of interest and c) what their general outlook is. Even if there is a conflict of interest, that wouldn't invalidate their positions, of course, it's just something to keep in mind when reading.
Edit: you're right dmos62, this comment was a bit trite. I can't delete it anymore now. Thank you for clarifying anyway!
What I was talking about is that the topic of this thread is unfortunately inflammatory due to regional politics, so we should be careful to maintain a standard of discussion.
Very few on HN actually work in the energy industry and so anything that "sounds about right" gets accepted if the person says it confidently. Unlike anything related to computer languages, where there are people who also know the topic techncially to debate.
It's a case of "those who speak do not know, those who know do not speak" because to do the topic justice would be a longer comment than anyone wants to read, and it cbmuser's ignorant comment is sure to be at the top.
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Lithuanians hardly have a perception of Belarusians as "scary foreigners" due to enormous amount of shared history, culture and even cuisine. It's foreign in the sense an Irish is foreign to an English, or a Norwegian to a Swede.
Lithuanians did live under the not dissimilar regime for half a century though and they understand how safety is done in such circumstances. The power station had numerous incidents during construction and commissioning, including human fatalities. Can't blame them for taking precautions.
One of the objectives was an attempt to make the Baltic States dependant on the Russian (well, Belarusian, but due to political realities it doesn't quite matter) energy supplies by flooding them with cheap electricity and discouraging them from diversification. Such dependency would give some means to make political influence to the Baltics. This was in addition to another objective of making Belarus even more economically reliant on Russia (in this case, very cheap but large loans given to build the power plant).
However, I don't think they managed to gain anything in the Baltics, because of a robust strategic response from the Baltic States: 1) they diversified their electricity supply with more links to Scandinavia and Poland (see NordBalt, EstLink and LitPol projects) 2) created an open and well functioning electricity market (see Nord Pool) 3) eventually decided to boycott the electricity from the Belarus Power Plant, undermining its economic basis.
Russia succeeded in tightening the economic grip on Belarus, but in terms of economic dependency, things are already pretty grim there..
I remember Canada building Nuclear Reactors in Romania during the Cold War years.
Even during the 90s USA I think even started work on nuclear reactors in North Korea.
Even recently Russia is building a nuclear power plant in Turkey.
You’re not thinking. You’re fantasizing and projecting. In your fantasy you basically stripped the Russians of all humanity to the point where they would intentionally poison a river with highly dangerous nuclear waste to stop a NATO conference and basically kill off an entire city.
Rather than these complicated conspiracy theories, a far simpler explanation is that Belarus needs energy and Russia has a nuclear power industry. Russia have sold these power plants all over the world, not just next to the EU border. If Russia really wanted to do something so horrific they don’t need to go through all the steps of building a complicated nuclear power plant to do it. They have plenty of weapons in their arsenal to do it already.
That's true, Russians only intentionally poison individuals and not entire cities.
Meanwhile in Nagasaki...
Yep, good people wouldn't never, ever, think about doing something like that. We are 100% safe.
Meanwhile in Nagasaki...
The region doesn’t exactly a stellar reputation in honesty after nuclear incidents. Japan was instantly honeat about Fukushima. Russia still lies about Chernobyl.
They acknowledge it now but when it hit there were non-stop blog posts going viral about how it's impossible for Fukushima to suffer a meltdown due to the design. The Japanese government was restricting information so tightly that there was no refutation of this misinformation.
Josef Oehmen's "Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors" went viral for example: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20266-how-josef-oehme...
It was all very reminiscent of the Soviet "It's impossible for Chernobyl to meltdown".
So no Japan was not instantly honest. They were not informing people of the real situation even after they knew.
Read reliable sources. https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/documents/review-mi...
https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/documents/review-mi...
Belarus can not help political hysteria in Lithuania no matter how actually safe NPP is.