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Guest post: A Russian journalist and Khimki forest activist is dead


On April 8, 2013, former editor of independent local newspaper Khimkinskaya Pravda Mikhail Beketov died in hospital. He was 55, but for the last four and a half years he has been severely disabled. On November 13, 2008 Mikhail Beketov was found unconscious near his house in the village of Starbeyevo. He was beaten extremely severely with baseball bats. He is thought to have been laying on the ground in the cold for around 36 hours. Though doctors saved his life, Beketov lost a part of his brain, his right leg, four fingers on both hands and remained disabled forever. He could neither walk, nor talk and needed constant external care. He underwent several surgical operations and had recently even been able move for short distances with the help of a prosthetic leg, however normal speech never returned. But all this progress appears to have been futile: now Mikhail Beketov is dead.

The official police investigation has still failed to find either the perpetrators or the masterminds of the attack. There was little doubt though that the attack was connected to his professional activity: beforehand, Mikhail received several “warnings”: his car was burnt, and his dog was killed. The administration of Khimki systematically pressured businesses that dared to advertise themselves in his newspaper “Khimkinskaya Pravda”, or took part in its distribution. Mikhail himself said that in case of a fatal attack one should seek those responsible in the Administration of Khimki.

The most likely explanation for the attack is that Beketov became the first casualty of the toll motorway construction project through the Khimki Forest. The project is still perpetrated by French construction giant Vinci jointly with Russian oligarch Arkady Rotenberg known for his “special relationship” with President Putin. Violence has become one of the hallmarks of the Moscow – St.Petersburg toll motorway project, and tens of criminal attacks against activists have been reported.

Beketov questioned the official version of the road across the Khimki Forest as an alleged way to solve the transport crisis in Khimki. He was the first person who publicly named corruption as the main reason explaining why the worst possible option was chosen for the motorway. The explanation was simple – protected forest lands were considered as a source of gross extra-profit for the perpetrators of the project. In one of his last articles headlined “The Khimki Forest Condemned” he attracted public attention to the plans of then Governor of Moscow Region Boris Gromov. According to his ruling, a 6-km-wide strip of land in Khimki Forest was ‘reserved’ for infrastructure needs of the future motorway. Now the project concessionaire denies any additional use of forest lands. Nevertheless, there is no official documents confirming it. The planned layout of the motorway in the project of new General Plan of Khimki reveals massive infrastructure object inside the forest except the motorway itself. It was symbolic for the Movement to Defend the Khimki Forest that in the last issue of Mikhail Beketov’s newspaper he summoned residents to a meeting to protect the Khimki Forest.

Of course, Khimki Forest was not the only point where Mikhail Beketov opposed the authorities. Since he began to publish the Khimkinskaya Pravda early in 2007, this newspaper became a truly alternative source of information for Khimki residents. He systematically criticized the course perpetrated by the authorities and took aim at the authorities’ neglect of the social and environmental interests of the majority in favour of the profit of a few “close friends“ of those in power. It is a pity that in the case of Khimki Forest, European business took side of those in power rather than of people like Beketov – Vinci still refuses to take seriously its contribution to corruption, destruction of the environment, and suppression of civil society in Russia.

Many top officials, including President (then Prime Minister) Vladimir Putin in October 2011, promised to find the criminals, who had attacked Beketov in November 2008. All these promises remained void. No culprits have been caught. And there is a strong suspicion that nobody has ever tried to investigate this crime seriously.

Exposing the nuke-speak: responses to the EBRD’s justification for financing nuclear lifetime extensions


Earlier this month, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development approved a 300 million euros loan for the highly contended so-called “Nuclear Safety Upgrade Programme” in Ukraine.

The EBRD finances safety measures at a reactor whose lifespan is over, full stop. The unit has stopped working and Energoatom plans to resume its operations after the upgrades are completed. And still the EBRD maintains that its project has nothing to do with lifetime extensions.

Having faced strong opposition against the project, the EBRD went to unusually great lengths to publicly justify the loan decision. Besides a promotional video and a guest post on the FT’s beyondbrics blog, the EBRD’s specifically prepared a Q&A on their website on “What the opponents say – and how the Bank responds”.

Yet as my rejoinders below will show, the EBRD’s responses fail to dispel the concerns that opponents raised repeatedly. And to illustrate the great deal of disappointment that fellow environmentalists have expressed I will include some of the comments I received from them. (EBRD responses are small and in italic, quotes from colleagues are indented.)

1. The programme is basically a lifetime extension of nuclear reactors which instead should be shut down.

EBRD response: Nuclear safety is a consideration of the utmost priority at any time regardless of whether a unit has just been connected to the grid or has been producing electricity for decades. The upgrade programme includes measures to address well-known generic safety issues with reactors of this design irrespective of their age. […]

The opposition to the project does not target the timing of the safety upgrades but the measures included in them. It has been pointed out repeatedly and in detail that the safety upgrades specifically include measures that prepare old nuclear units for running longer than their designed lifetime and cannot be considered mere safety upgrades.

Jan Haverkamp, Greepeace anti-nuclear campaigner added:

    The EBRD has been informed of this issue [the lifetime extensions], did not want to address it and avoids addressing it by diverting attention in their answer here.

    With this loan, the EBRD is net increasing the risk to the population of Ukraine and Europe, because the chance of a nuclear incident or accident increases with age exponentially. Whereas the upgrade may (or may not, depending on the risk assessment) decrease the risk in the few years of the expected technical lifetime, it does not do so over the entire extended lifetime during which the risk will increase in absolute terms.

2. Unit 1 at South Ukraine NPP initially did not get a licence beyond 2012. Does the EBRD have confidence in the independence of Ukraine’s nuclear regulator?

Energoatom has made a case to the nuclear regulator (SNRIU) for a longer operation period of SU1 arguing that the design life of the plant had not yet elapsed. Energoatom provided documentation, including information by the design institute, to substantiate the claim. After review SNRIU granted the extension of the licence until the end of the current fuel campaign. Due process was followed and we have no indication that any pressure was put on the regulator to influence its decision.
SU1 will go into a long outage at the end of its current licence, Energoatom will perform (safety and other) upgrades and seek a new licence. We have confidence that such a request will be duly reviewed by SNRIU and Energoatom will get a new licence if it can demonstrate that SU1 meets all the requirements. This process, however, has nothing to do with our project.

Unit 1 at the South Ukraine plant has been taken off grid already, because its lifetime has expired. The EBRD explicitly admits here that the decision on a new licence (and thus a lifetime extension) will be made after safety and other upgrades have been implemented.

These are exactly the upgrades of the Nuclear Safety Upgrade Programme that the EBRD now supports. In other words, the EBRD finances safety measures at a reactor whose lifespan is over, full stop. The unit has stopped working and Energoatom plans to resume its operations after the upgrades are completed.

And still the EBRD maintains that its project has nothing to do with lifetime extensions.

3. The Bank did not use its leverage sufficiently to bring Ukraine to a commitment to a fixed date for the phasing out of nuclear power production

The Bank has no policy basis for forcing the closure of any source of energy. The EBRD’s energy policy is mainly geared towards bringing about greater energy efficiency. However, the Bank has been given a clear mandate by its shareholders that: “it may provide financing to an operating facility in relation to nuclear safety improvements” (EBRD Energy Operations Policy).
Ukraine is currently reviewing its own energy strategy but has made it clear that it will continue to use nuclear power generation. Consequently, addressing the safety issues and raising of standards is the EBRD’s primary concern and its due role.

Ukraine’s nuclear extension plans and Europe’s complicity


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Greig Aitken, long-time IFI activist and editor of Bankwatch Mail wrote:

    Support for nuclear safety, if it does result in the closure of unsafe facilities, is the kind of tough medicine Ukraine needs, but that is not what the latest EBRD loan is going to bring about.

    The excuse being offered by the bank – that Ukraine has made a sovereign decision to extend nuclear lifetimes in which the EBRD has not been involved and which it cannot influence – is highly disingenuous. The implementation of this sovereign decision depends on external, European support. The EBRD is providing this support and is thus playing the role of an accessory to a dangerous, unsustainable policy agenda – moreover, one that has not been consulted with a transparent and democratic due process, and where the alternative of shutting down the outdated nuclear reactors has not been assessed.

    The Ukrainian nuclear horse has bolted once again (destination unknown), and while the bank’s arguments are akin to saying it is now trying to close the stable doors, on this occasion the EBRD’s offer of ‘safety financing’ has clearly helped to prise those stable doors open in the first place. The attempt to paint this intervention as responsible financing is naive, not to say totally illogical.

4. The EBRD should rather invest in renewables and lessen Ukraine’s dependency on imports of gas and oil and nuclear power.

The Bank is taking a very active role in the promotion of “green” energy in Ukraine and in many cases serves as a forerunner. In 2012 alone the Bank invested over €200 million in energy projects based on renewables sources such as wind or water. At the same time, the Bank is a leading force in the drive to improve the country’s energy efficiency. Ukraine still has an energy intensity which is three times higher than the European average. The EBRD therefore strongly supports the present review of the country’s energy strategy and the commitment to reach an 11 per cent renewable energy target by 2020.

It is not at all clear if Ukraine’s commitment under the European Energy Community to reach the 11 per cent renewables target by 2020 is reflected in the latest draft of the Energy Strategy. The Ministerial Council claims (pdf) that the renewable share in gross energy consumption already now lies at 5.5 percent – a number that includes a mysterious ‘other sources’ category which are not necessarily renewable energy sources. And even the State Agency on Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving admits that the new Energy Strategy contradicts Ukraine’s commitments under the Energy Community.

While the EBRD claims to see Ukraine’s “strong effort to increase energy efficiency”, the new draft Energy Strategy is not at all that convincing: it aims at decreasing GDP energy intensity by 60% by 2030 which would take Ukraine only as far as Poland in 2006 and is hardly an ambitious target. The EBRD loan for the NPP safety upgrade programme will again allow the Ukrainian government to continue their “business as usual”. And we will wait another 10-20 years for a strong stimulus to seriously address the country’s high energy intensity.

Guest post: Never again Sostanj


In the beginning of March, the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development paid out half a billion euros in loans for a new unit at the Sostanj lignite power plant in Slovenia (TES 6).

The reactions I got from fellow environmentalists who had been campaigning against the project expressed a tremendous disappointment over this decision. Not only were the two banks not courageous enough to take one of the numerous flaws of the project and pull out. They also presented their decision with what was perceived as positive spin.

Ignoring the ongoing corruption investigations, the EIB’s press release for instance ends with this wording:

“The new plant will generate up to 30 per cent more electricity with no additional CO2 emissions.”

But “not more” carbon emissions is missing the point, what we need, as international bodies and various experts constantly point out, is fewer emissions. Instead, TES 6 alone will emit about as much carbon by 2050 as Slovenia as a whole would be allowed to emit if it is to reach European climate objectives.

This disappointment and the (justified) fear that the Sostanj lignite power plant may not have been the EBRD and EIB’s last controversial project has led 98 organisations to send an open letter (pdf) to both banks calling on them to never commit to such a misguided loan again. (You can read a quick summary of the letter’s content in Bankwatch’s press release from today.)

At this very moment the EBRD is considering a loan for the Kolubara B lignite plant in Serbia, and has recently published a draft country strategy for its newest member, Kosovo, which features as its centrepiece none other than the planned 600 MW Kosovo C lignite power plant.

With the energy lending of the EIB and the EBRD under review at the moment, this is just the right time to inscribe the lessons from the Sostanj disaster into their institutional memory. Coal should be off the table once and for all, as should any project under investigation for corruption. This applies to the Western Balkans as much as to any other region.

Read more on our energy lending campaign

[Campaign update] Woes in Kosovo’s energy sector trigger demand for Minister’s removal


On Friday March 15, 2013, the Kosovo Civil Society Consortium for Sustainable Development (KOSID) issued a press statement demanding the dismissal of Minister of Economic Development, Mr. Besim Beqaj from his position. The stated reasons are the “wrong and damaging governmental policies in the past years have brought the country in a state of emergency and energy collapse” and bring enormous costs to Kosovars:

Kosovars currently pay a high cost of electricity as a result of the Government’s decision last year to raise the lignite royalty from 0.27 Euro cents to 3 Euro (namely by 1011%). This was done with the aim of collecting more revenues for their budget, to cover the budget mismanagements in other national levels.”

Read the full press release on the KOSID website.

The demand is yet another effort by KOSID to reform the country’s energy sector, including a shift away from lignite to clean and renewable energy sources. Their particular attention received a lignite fired power plant near Pristina that is due to receive support by the World Bank and may also be a project the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is willing to get behind.

UPDATE: Following the public outcry against increased electricity prices and support for the suggested removal of Besim Beqaj, the minister announced on Monday that there will not be an increase in electricity tariffs this year.

* Campaign updates are a new feature on the Bankwatch website intended to highlight news from projects we monitor as well as from our member groups and partners.

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Revision of the EBRD’s Energy Operations Policy

New nuclear risks in Ukraine – decision expected tomorrow

This post is an article from Issue 55 of our quarterly newsletter Bankwatch Mail.

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In recent weeks, Alexander Shavlakov, the technical director of Energoatom, the state nuclear operator, acknowledged the reality of the programme, telling a meeting in February of the trade union of Ukrainian nuclear industry workers: “Without the Safety Upgrade Programme, [nuclear] units’ lifetime extension is out of the question. We should be conscious of this.”

The ‘nuclear safety’ billing of the SUP appears to be blinding EBRD decision-makers to the full implications of the proposed investment, although discussions and negotiations around the deal have been taking longer than expected – the EBRD board date for the decision is now scheduled for March 12, some six months later than planned.

For me, there is a fundamental issue at stake: “Would the proposed EBRD loan help to guarantee the safe operation of Ukraine’s 15 operating nuclear units, 12 of which are designed to finish operating by 2020? Our answer is ‘no’. The SUP has got to be exclusively geared to safety measures, including the decommissioning of old reactors, not prolonging their lifetime.”

Chief among the concerns of campaigners is that the SUP has not been designed to guarantee the safe operation of Ukrainian nuclear units after the expiration of the original design life.

Continued in Bankwatch Mail 55

Coal power plants make you sick


A timely report published today by the Health and Environment Alliance entitled ‘The unpaid health bill: How coal power plants make us sick’ provides comprehensive calculations of the effects of coal-fired power generation across Europe on chronic lung disease and some heart conditions. ‘The unpaid health bill: how coal power plants make us sick’ documents up to 18,200 premature deaths, 2,100,000 days of medication, 4,100,000 lost working days, and 28,600,000 cases of lower respiratory symptoms caused by coal power.

The health costs of coal-fired power stations add a financial burden to Europe’s people totalling 42.8 billion euros a year. Poland has the highest health impacts as well as health costs, estimated at over 8 billion euros per year, while Romania and Germany are third behind Turkey with more than 6 billion euros in health costs annually.

Chart: Annual health costs associated with coal power generation per country in millions of euros (2009 data)

(The map does not display values for Turkey.)

Of the 20 most polluting coal-fired power plants in the EU, five of them are Romanian installations at Turceni, Rovinari, Drobeta Turnu Severin, Isalnita and Mintia. Need a figure? 426 kg of mercury emitted each year at the Turceni power plant. Do you need a dispersion model? Suffice it to say that the Romanian government is taking steps (not unlike other countries in Europe) to postpone emission reduction at 28 power plant installations, while the EU accedes to the country under the Industrial Emissions Directive.

Following a similar campaign about the health impacts of coal-fired power generation in Kosovo, the HEAL report provides another stark warning to both the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Investment Bank as the two revise their energy policies and consider what if any restrictions to place on financing for coal projects. The report is yet more fuel for the need to phase out support fossil fuels starting with coal. The EU needs to get its act together, for cleaner air, to prevent climate change, and for better health.