Interview: The EU and nuclear safety in the Eastern Partnership countries

Interview with:  Maciej Jurkowski 

Maciej Jurkowski is a Vice President of Polish National Atomic Energy Agency and Chief Nuclear Regulatory Inspector.

How do you assess the European Union’s activities regarding nuclear safety in Eastern Partnership countries, especially those where there are nuclear power stations, namely Armenia and Ukraine?

Since the beginning of the 1990s, the European Union has paid close attention to the issue of safety in the power stations located in these countries. They were covered by the special TACIS programme, which ran until the middle of this decade, and included the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Armenia, which operated one nuclear power plant in Metsamor. Since 2007, that programme has been replaced by the Instrument for Nuclear Safety Cooperation (INSC), although this one no longer covers just the former Soviet states, but is open to all third countries (including Latin America, North Africa, and the African, Caribbean & Pacific Group countries).

Both these programmes were aimed at providing two kinds of aid for government institutions. In the Eastern European countries, nuclear energy has not been the domain of private entities, and the nuclear power stations there are operated by large state organisations. Firstly, this programme offered specific assistance in carrying out various upgrades to the power stations which operated under these organisations’ supervision. Secondly, it was aimed at those state institutions which are responsible for the independent external oversight of nuclear safety – the so-called nuclear regulatory authorities  (NRA) and the institutions supporting them, the so-called technical support organisations (TSO).

The TACIS programme to aid the NRAs foresaw the allocation of several tens of million euros each year, and sometimes more. For example, the value of the on-going projects in 2007 for Armenia, the Russian Federation, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine amounted to ?27 million. In the same year, the value of the projects approved and awaiting implementation amounted to an additional ?18 million. These funds were mainly allocated so that the nuclear regulatory authorities, with aid from the TSOs, would license the implementation of specific design improvements for existing nuclear power plants, such as replacing systems and components. Furthermore, they financed analyses, evaluations and decisions regarding, for example, the introduction of new procedures for emergency situations, and the appropriate management of radioactive waste and nuclear fuel. I have only mentioned some individual examples of this aid for the nuclear regulatory authorities, and I haven’t included the funds allocated to making specific changes in the power plants themselves. The European Union’s main objective is to ensure that the level of nuclear power safety in the countries surrounding it is constantly being raised, and that it eventually reaches the same level as in the EU. Thanks to the TACIS programme, nuclear reactors in Ukraine (in Rivne and the Khmelnytskyi oblast) and in Russia have been modernised.

Do you think that the Instrument for Nuclear Safety Cooperation is meeting its objectives?

The activities carried out as part of this Instrument are expensive. They include quite expensive expert missions, which are usually run by nuclear safety specialists from leading supervisory institutions in Western European countries. Viewed from this standpoint, these activities take up a lot of the funding, but they seem to have positive effects. The data shows that the level of nuclear safety in the countries receiving assistance is progressively rising. I don't think that the INSC aid has been either too little or too much – it is simply adequate. Of course, among the EU donor countries, the question arises: “Should the Union actually engage directly in assistance for countries far away from its own borders?”. This may relate to the benefits which the EU sees in cooperating with these countries, and to opportunities to monitor their nuclear safety. It is obvious that a major failure in a nuclear power plant anywhere in the world gives rise to great emotion and interest. After each accident, and particularly after such a dramatic one as Fukushima, you can say that there is also a rationale for the EU to get involved further away from its borders. The EU contains the largest number of nuclear power stations in the world – over 150 of them (second is the United States with 104 reactors, then Japan with 55). From this point of view, given how sensitive public opinion is, then as far as nuclear safety considerations are concerned, the existence of the INSC and extending it to other, even more remote countries is reasonable. Now it even covers India and China, which are developing nuclear energy programmes very quickly, as is Brazil.

How might the failure of the power station in Fukushima in Japan affect the EU’s actions in the area of nuclear safety? As a result of public pressure, could the European Commission start to put pressure on partner countries to give up nuclear energy?

I haven’t noticed such trends, not even among those EU politicians who are sceptical of nuclear energy. Despite the enormous emotions unleashed by the major accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, which was caused by an enormous tsunami, the politicians’ later declarations were more muted in tone. It doesn’t seem to me that Europe has any other solution than nuclear energy. On the one hand, we have the pressure associated with the greenhouse effect to limit CO2 emissions; on the other, there is no other source of energy which is so matured in both technical and economical terms, so safe and emission-free. And at the same time, it allows us very quickly to meet the objectives of the emissions reduction policy, while considering the need to provide an economical and independent electricity supply to the public. Nevertheless, events in Japan will certainly strengthen the Commission’s focus on the EU and the partner countries, so that the latter improve their supervision of those power stations which they are already using. The responses from certain EU politicians after the Fukushima accident show this. Without even waiting for the experts’ views, the European Commission released a recommendation to carry out work aimed at possible design improvements based on analyses of the data from this disaster. This recommendation applies both throughout the EU and, as far as possible, to neighbouring countries such as Belarus and Russia which intend to build power plants near EU borders. The EU Energy Commissioner Gunther Oettinger has called for “stress tests”; these are analysis of resistance to extremely inhospitable external conditions for nuclear power stations, both those which already exist and those which are being built. This type of analysis is necessary in order to avoid situations like what happened in Japan, in conditions of extreme disaster which could occur in Europe (not in the form of a tsunami, but for example, flooding of the sort that could occur once in a few hundred years). European plants have relatively high safety levels, although we need to verify whether the design assumptions made during their construction are still appropriate in the light of the lessons from Fukushima.

Now it's the 25th anniversary of the explosion at the Chernobyl power plant. How important is the EU's support in modernising Ukraine’s nuclear power plants? How effective do you think the actions taken have been?

The Chernobyl accident was caused by a RBMK-type water-cooled graphite moderated reactor, of a kind which is not used in power stations anywhere in the world outside the former Soviet Union (only 11 are still in operation now, all in Russia – 4 in the Leningrad region, 3 in the Smolensk region and 4 in the Kursk region). Using this type of reactor is not permitted in the EU; when Lithuania entered the Union, it had to permanently shut-down and decommission two reactors of this type. Similarly, the use of light water reactors without containment, like the Soviet VVER 440/230 reactors, is not permitted in the European Union; Slovakia and Bulgaria had to decommission theirs, when these countries acceded to the European Union. It turned out that in Ukraine, after Chernobyl’s RBMK reactors were permanently decommissioned, there were no other reactors which could be licensed for operation in the European Union. Both the 2 smaller VVER 440/213 reactors at Rivne and the other Ukrainian reactors at other plants (all VVER 1000 types) have been equipped with safety enclosures (containment). And thanks to EU aid, over the last ten or so years, they have been successfully upgraded to a similar degree to those plants of the same type which are currently operated in the former Eastern bloc countries that have joined the European Union. Western experts have assessed the level of safety at these reactors as being comparable to the other types of reactors which have been used for many years in the EU. We should add that much EU funding has also been allocated to modernising nuclear power plants in Russia, including the RBMK reactors which are unacceptable within the EU; that has has considerably increased their operational safety.

What is the EU's commitment in Armenia, which is another Eastern Partnership state with nuclear energy? What are the prospects for the operation of the plant in Metsamor, which the EU has been seeking to have closed?

The Metsamor reactor has been given the green light to operate by the EU, albeit subject to certain technical improvements, and under very strict control. It will only operate until Armenia resolves its problems with electricity supplies.
The EU’s existing aid has resulted in the improvement of the regulatory system in Armenia, deeper safety analyses, and an improvement in operational procedures, as well as the introduction of some technical improvements. This assistance initially consisted of an analysis of the Metsamor plant’s safety, in order to determine whether it was suitable for further service; and then, if it wasn’t, introducing possible short-term improvements, and running the plant at the safest possible level, until a fixed deadline to shut it down; alternatively, to modernise the plant, so as to allow normal operations to continue.

How do you see the prospects for the development of nuclear energy in the Eastern Partnership countries? Will Belarus start building its own power plant within the next ten years?

I think that they could construct such a plant, certainly; especially as its construction could be justified by important political considerations, such as what Russia thinks. I don't think that Belarus would build a different kind of plant to those found in Russia, to be realistic. Of course, there is a question mark over how the bidding for the contract will be conducted – sending tenders to multiple partners – but realistically, there is no other possibility than a Russian construction. Of course, the construction of the planned plant in Kaliningrad will happen in a similar way. 

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