EBRD finances lifetime expansion of Ukrainian nukes, but gets defensive about it

Kiev – The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development approved yesterday a 300 million euros loan for the so-called “Safety Upgrade Programme” of Ukraine. In reality, the beneficiary company, state-owned Energoatom, will use the money to prolong the lifetime of 12 old nuclear reactors.

“We consider this loan to be one of the biggest mistakes committed by the EBRD lately,” comments Ionut Apostol, Bankwatch EBRD coordinator. “Despite the bank denying that this money will be used for lifetime expansion, just very recently the technical director of Energoatom stated publicly that, without the safety upgrade programme, one should forget about lifetime extension of the old nukes.”

“This is an extreme case of ‘Newspeak’ from the EBRD,” adds Apostol. “They call it safety upgrade, when in fact it means more years of unsafe nuclear power, with no money going to decommissioning of expired reactors and spent fuel treatment, which should be core to any nuclear safety package.”

“It is outrageous that the EBRD is helping Ukraine run their old nuclear power plants longer under the disguise of safety upgrades and it is equally outrageous that a country like Germany, a member of the EBRD decision-making board which is implementing a nuclear phase out at home, did not strongly oppose this decision,” comments Regine Richter from German green NGO urgewald.

Together with a European Commission loan under the Euratom Treaty (which is expected to be approved in the following months), the EBRD is covering up to 40 percent of the project costs, which have been estimated at 1.45 billion euros according to the most recent calculations.

Particularly worrisome is that the Safety Upgrade Programme to be funded by the EBRD does not guarantee the safe operation of Ukrainian nuclear units after the expiration of the original design lifetime. The 12 reactors whose lifetime will be expanded should all be taken out of operation by 2020 at the latest, but they will function at least a decade more instead. For example, the South Ukrainian Reactor 1, which had been stopped already, will be restarted again using financing approved by the EBRD today.

“In the main ecological assessment report prepared for the Safety Upgrade Programme, only impacts within the design lifetime were analysed,” explains Iryna Holovko, Bankwatch coordinator for Ukraine. “To take the specific case of the South Ukrainian Unit 1 that expires this year, its potential environmental impacts beyond the closure date have been deemed by Energoatom to be ‘non-significant’ because ‘in previous years of operation no significant impacts were observed’. This is a highly irresponsible approach to nuclear safety and one that the EBRD, if it is a responsible public lender, should not be buying into.”

The EC is expected to approve a parallel loan to Ukraine under the Euratom loan facility in the next few months. The conditionalities for both loans remain unknown to date, but if the EC and the EBRD are serious about nuclear safety, then the preparation of decommissioning plans for the reactors should be part of any loan to the Ukrainian nuclear sector.

In an unprecedented move caused by the strong opposition generated by this investment plan in Ukraine and Europe-wide, the EBRD has posted on its website a Q&A with the main points raised by opponents of this loan to which it responds. The Q&A and an accompanying promo video produced especially for the occasion of the announcement of the loan is available here: http://www.ebrd.com/pages/news/features/ukraine-nuclear-safety-upgrade.shtml.

Notes for the editors:

Read more details about the risks of this Safety Upgrade Programme in a recent Bankwatch Mail article:
https://bankwatch.org/bwmail/55/new-nuclear-risks-ukraine-ebrd-urged-not-back-lifetime-extensions-under-guise-safety

and see the basic facts of this case on the Bankwatch website:
https://bankwatch.org/our-work/projects/nuclear-power-plant-safety-upgrades-ukraine

Photos from a Greenpeace + Bankwatch action in Kiev against the prolongation of nukes’ lifetime are available here:
https://bankwatch.org/news-media/blog/public-action-ukraine-reminding-ebrd-meaning-nuclear-safety (Can be reprinted with due credit)

See EBRD Safety Upgrade Programme project page:
http://www.ebrd.com/pages/project/psd/2011/42086.shtml

For more information, contact:

Iryna Holovko,
CEE Bankwatch Network, National campaigner for Ukraine
iryna at bankwatch.org
mob: +38050 647 67 00

Regine Richter
urgewald Berlin
mob: 0170-2930725
regine at urgewald.de