News
Publish date: December 6, 2000
Written by: Thomas Nilsen
News
A malfunction in one of the reactors cooling circulation device triggered the emergency protection system and the reactor was automatically shut down. No leakage of radioactivity is reported.
Today’s emergency comes only two weeks after the reactor was forced to shut down after the power lines near Chernobyl were damaged due to severe weather conditions. The reactor was then restarted again on December 1 – the same day when the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) was to decide whether to provide Ukraine with loan to complete two reactors at the Rovno and Khmelnitsky nuclear power plants. The two reactors, already 80% completed, would replace the electricity demand after proposed closure of the dangerous Chernobyl reactor. That meeting was postponed until tomorrow.
Most likely EBRD will provide Ukraine with the financial means needed to complete the construction of the two new reactors. In 1995, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the Ukraine and the G7 countries in which it is stated that Chernobyl could be replaced with compensating new reactors. But there are dissagreements among the participating states at the EBRD meeting.
Norway will not give its vote for EBRD financing more reactors in Ukraine. ‘It is our principal view that multilateral financial institutions should not support the construction of more nuclear power’, says the Norwegian Minister of Finance Karl-Erik Schjoett-Pedersen. He is the Norwegian governor to EBRD.
‘Ukraine has a substantial potential for developing renewable energy sources, and institutions like EBRD should support this’, says Schjoett-Pedersen.
On Tuesday this week, a delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the European Commission and the EBRD arrived in Kiev to participate in hearings devoted to the official closing of the last operating reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
The share of the Chernobyl reactor in the Ukrainian electricity grid is 5%.
Recent attacks on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant "mark the beginning of a new and gravely dangerous front of the war," the UN atomic agency's director general said last week.
After years of inaction, Germany is working on its Carbon Management Strategy to resolve how CCS can play a role in climate action in industry. At the end of February, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action published first key points and a proposal to amend the law Kohlenstoffdioxid Speicherungsgesetz (KSpG). Bellona Deutschland, who was actively involved in the previous stakeholder dialogue submitted a statement in the association hearing.
In the midst of a global discussion on whether natural gas should be used as a transitional fuel and whether emissions from its extraction, production, transport and use are significantly less than those from other fossil fuels, Russia has developed ambitious plans to increase its own production of liquified natural gas (LNG) in the Arctic – a region with 75% of proven gas reserves in Russia – to raise its share in the international gas trade.
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our main focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution risks and climate change.