Greenpeace called on the executive directors of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) meeting here today to delay their decision on whether to finance the two Chernobyl replacement reactors in the Ukraine, after a leaked government study revealed serious short-comings in the safety of the plants. The study, commissioned by the Austrian government, described the half-completed reactors as "particularly hazardous" and said they would not reach Western safety standards. It found that the reactor design assumptions for earthquakes at the Khmelnitsky and Rovno sites had been underestimated by a factor of four.
The study also found:
- key safety upgrades on the two reactors will not be completed by the start-up date and may take years to finish because of the poor financial state of the Ukrainian economy and the operating company ENERGOATOM
- the priority repayment requirements of the EBRD loan would further aggravate the lack of funds for repair, maintenance and upgrades of Ukrainian nuclear power plants.
- the K2R4 project has an even lower safety standard than the controversial Temelin nuclear power plant in the Czech Republic over which Austria is threatening to veto Czech ascension to the European Union
"These reactors are dangerous, they are not needed, and the EBRD must now delay its decision on whether to finance them in the light of this safety study," said Tobias Muenchmeyer of Greenpeace International.
A number of Ukrainians joined Greenpeace today in London to call on the EBRD to delay the decision on whether to fund the K2R4. Natalya Preobrazhenskaya, 69, is a former biochemist who runs a medical centre for children affected by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. "I have seen 9 year-old children that have the diseases of middle-aged men," she said. "Why do we need these new reactors? Nobody voted for them. If the bankers give the money, we want to know their names, so that we can hold them responsible for this decision."
Ukrainian journalist Lyubov Kovalevskaya, 48, is a journalist from the former town of Pripyat which is two kilometres from the Chernobyl nuclear plant. She was at home when the plant exploded in 1986. Ms Kovalevskaya, said: "Supervision of nuclear safety is now a hundred times worse that it was in Soviet times. The bankers have forgotten that nuclear fuel was stolen from Chernobyl in the 1990s and they have forgotten the risk of earthquakes."
The EBRD directors meeting today are also considering inaccurate figures according to a study, commissioned by Greenpeace, which found that the latest least-cost analysis by the EBRD of energy projects to replace the Chernobyl reactor, gives a misleadingly inflated cost for the non-nuclear options.
The EBRD's key criterion for lending on the K2R4 project, is that it is the least cost investment in the Ukrainian energy sector. The study found that the EBRD when calculating the cost of the K2R4 project correctly included the massive fall in the value of the Ukrainian currency between 1998-1999, hence reducing its total cost. However the bank did not include the currency devaluation when calculating the cost of the non-nuclear energy projects such as a combined-cycle gas-fired power plant.
In May of this year Greenpeace had criticised a similar miscalculation in earlier EBRD documents on K2R4. In its latest document the EBRD states that it took into account Greenpeace's criticism, but still managed to repeat the mistake.
"The least cost criteria is crucial for the EBRD in deciding whether to proceed with the loan for K2R4. For the EBRD to repeat a fundamental mistake in calculating the cost of this project, which makes it appear cheaper than other energy projects, is either gross incompetence or a manipulation of the figures," Muenchmeyer said.
Notes to Editors:
The EBRD has been reviewing the economic, environmental and financial viability of the $1.48 billion K2R4 project since 1995 when the project was put forward by the G7 and EU. The last remaining reactor at Chernobyl is nowscheduled to close on December 15. The EBRD is due to make a final decisionon K2R4 on December 7.
Since the economic collapse of the Ukraine, following the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1992 and the collapse of the Ukrainian currency in 1998, final consumption of electricity dropped from 201 terrawatt hours TWh (billion kilowatt hours) in 1991 to 118 TWh in 1999. This has resulted in a large number of power stations no longer being needed. This excess of capacity is twenty times larger than the operating reactor at Chernobyl. The Ukrainian operating company ENERGOATOM which currently collects only 7.9% of electricity sales in cash with 60-70% of transactions done by barter.
Further information:
Contact Greenpeace press office on 020 7865 8255
