The exploitation period of 12 out of 15 Ukrainian nuclear power plant units will soon come to an end. Experts at the National Ecological Center of Ukraine are convinced that extending the lifetimes of outdated nuclear reactors will only exacerbate, rather than solve, the problems of power generation in Ukraine.
The service life of units 1 and 2 at the Rivne Nuclear Power Plant (put into operation in 1980 and 1981) are to expire this year and in 2011, respectively. The decision to extend their service life will result in a situation when Ukraine will have to use obsolete and worn-out reactors. The government of Ukraine is planning to use units designed for a 30-year period for another 15 to 30 years, and is allotting for this purpose considerable funds that might be used more efficiently in other energy sectors. This practice may pose a threat to people, the environment, and Ukraine’s energy security. For this reason a forum was recently held in Rivne, where experts from the National Ecological Center of Ukraine tackled the question of what to do with the Rivne power plants, and the ways of solving environmental and energy-related problems.
“The vast majority of European countries decommission their old power units. Germany shut down some of the power units, similar to those of the Rivne plant, well before the expiration of the designed service life, and Bulgaria and Slovakia did so as soon as this period had ended,” says Dmytro Khmara, an expert on energy matters at the National Ecological Center of Ukraine.
According to the center’s pundits, the 1st and 2nd reactors of the Rivne plant should be the first in line for decommissioning, with a decision to be made within a few weeks. For this purpose, the Rivne plant is going to hold a meeting of officials on December 10 in order to decide whether to extent the life of the two reactors, which have already been working for 30 years.
Experts are concerned about the power units’ operation. It is difficult to spot the first signs of a reactor’s ageing, as they start out at a microscopic level, and only become obvious after an accident has occurred. The inspectors who are examining the Rivne units can only give a rough assessment of the equipment’s condition. For example, the likelihood of a serious accident at a nuclear power plant is estimated as 10-5 (one accident per 100,000 years), but in reality such accidents occur once every few years. So even after a detailed inspection, there still remains a high probability of an accident at the Rivne plant. The probability of an accident is directly linked to the age of the power plant.
“These Rivne plant reactors are so old that, sooner or later, they will have to be replaced. And decommissioning them will cost much more than it does now. Moreover, when any reactor has worked for more than 20 years, the danger of an accident with radioactive emissions greatly increases, and this situation is unacceptable for the public. So, in my opinion, the best option today, as far as Ukraine’s energy security is concerned, is to decommission the nuclear units after their installed service life has expired. And the money now being spent on keeping nuclear power plants going should be earmarked for improving industry and public utilities,” Khmara explains.
Experts say that extending the life of old reactors is economically unsound, too, because Ukraine is unable even now to consume all the energy it produces.
“Holdups in the operation of units result in ineffective use of nuclear power. Accordingly, nuclear electricity costs do not cover the expenses on tackling the problem of nuclear power plants’ radioactive wastes. Moreover, further operation of these two units makes Ukraine dependent on the Russian producer of nuclear fuel — the only one in the world that still makes fuel for such obsolete reactors,” says Artur Denysenko, coordinator of the National Ecological Center’s energy program.
