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Comment by cbmuser | Hacker News Reader

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.

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A few points:

- 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.

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

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.

1: https://www.fennovoima.fi/en/news/quarterly-update-basic-des...

> It is perhaps also worth mentioning that the construction of the Hanhikivi plant has not started yet.

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

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".

Any reliable sources which would confirm that Belarus indeed uses "the cheapest" package without "extra safety features"?

Yep, I'm looking for this too. The VVER-1200 design definitely seems like it has a myriad of safety features, so I'm curious what is being left out.

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.

Good article on the issue: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2020/04/28/eu-nuclear...

> Yet, the regulators still identified a considerable list of issues to be addressed.

This is normal for any plant. Doesn't mean that VVER is less safe.

> 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.

Do you have a source for that claim?

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.

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.

The problem is - I'd trust french people, but not belarus/russia. As their quality sign - check out the cars they produce...

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).

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_ac...

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.

If you like questionable nucleair power plant placement, look up Chooz.

> 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.

> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaip%C4%97da_LNG_FSRU

Maybe people in Lituania changed their mind? i don’t understand your point based on what “they” choose a decade ago.

LNG does not produce any electricity, it's just a platform for gas storage and stuff. so not sure why you mix those two different things.

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:

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?

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.)

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.

Essentially all Fukushima related deaths were caused by the evacuation, which many now consider to have been a mistake https://www.ft.com/content/000f864e-22ba-11e8-add1-0e8958b18...

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.

On what basis are you claiming that?

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.

> In fully half of the INES level 7

For anyone reading along here, this is drawn from a sample size of 2. (Fukushima and Chernobyl)

> 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.

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

Germany decomissioned almost everything nuclear. Also a politically motivated move. Now they have the highest electricity prices in the EU.

VVER reactors have an overall good safety record so far, the trouble is this one seems botched.

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).

> 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.

I hope for the best but stuff like this does not give much confidence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astravets_Nuclear_Power_Plant#...

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.

> 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 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.

I guess after that regime fell, Lithuanians had much say in whether to continue operating that plant, and between 1990 and 2009 their say was "aye".

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.

> Lithuania imports 70% of its power from Belarus, and the average price of electricity is among the highest in EU.

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignalina_Nuclear_Power_Plant#S...

"Overnight" is a straw man. If Lithuania was extremely worried about not polluting Latvia capital's river, it wouldn't take them 19 years.

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.

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.

that is main issue.

I think the issue is that they don’t trust Belarus to properly manage their nuclear plants, not that they don’t trust nuclear plants in general.

Given that Belarus is a corrupt authoritarian regime that’s teetering on the edge, I’d say that’s a fair concern.

The plant has been inspected by IAEA personnel and is currently being inspected by EU nuclear experts.

> https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/iaea-delivers-inir-miss...

> https://twitter.com/RosatomGlobal/status/1360129094906707975

Is inspection enough to operate reliable services?

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.

At best this is another manifestation of the "is–ought problem" and AFAIK there is no way to decide, at worst it is an appeal to tradition ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition ).

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.

Source for these claims?

There are EU nuclear inspectors on the site:

> https://twitter.com/RosatomGlobal/status/1360129094906707975

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.

Natural gas isn't helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Lithuania can opt for small nuclear reactors like Estonia did:

> https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/No-time-to-waste-in-...

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.

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.

One decade later Lithuanians can change their minds about all this (their plant is now closed).

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

Why would you hold erring on the side of caution against them?

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."

> https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2020/04/28/eu-nuclear...

Older, less advanced reactor run by a democratic country is safer than modern more advanced reactor run by what is basically a dictatorship.

RBMK is not simply “less advanced” design, it is dangerously unsafe.

Exactly.

We'd need to have prove for that, afaik the reactor at Fukushima was not old and Japan is a strong democracy.

>afaik the reactor at Fukushima was not old

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.

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.

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.

> which was basically a man-made disaster

So the man-made disaster consisted in allowing to build something like this in an area where there are earthquakes so big.

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.

France is not so "happy" with nuclear.

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...

Pretty much this. Its politics, especially after the recent post-election events in Belarus.

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 EU and NATO have a vested interest in making Belarus seem like a scary, dangerous place that needs regime change.

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

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.

See: https://twitter.com/RosatomGlobal/status/1323580827377258507

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?

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.

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.

Lukashenko must be on their payroll because he is by far the most effective at making it seems like a place that needs regime change.

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