July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.
Disaster waiting to happen?
Editorial
Recent events in Japan have the world reassessing nuclear power and how best to balance safety and our constant appetite for energy.
But troubling as events at Fukushima have been, there are other active nuclear sites with a far, far greater potential for a disaster of catastrophic proportions.
The worst may be in Armenia.
There, in a town about halfway between Yerevan, the capital, and Gyumri, the country’s second largest city, is Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant.
It holds the dubious distinction of being the most dangerous nuclear reactor in the former Soviet Union.
It’s also located right in the middle of an earthquake zone.
The reactor is old, and as we understand it, it’s built on the Chernobyl model. That is, it doesn’t have the sort of sophisticated containment vessel that has kept the Fukushima situation from growing worse.
Built in the 1970s, it was brought online in 1980, using technology and safety standards that would be laughable in the power industry today.
Eight years after it went into operation, a devastating earthquake hit near Gyumri. The epicenter of the 6.9-magnitude quake was about 45 miles away.
Not surprisingly, Metsamor was deactivated after the quake. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Armenia found itself in an armed conflict with its neighbor Azerbaijan. That conflict — which has been in a stalemate for 17 years now — resulted in Armenia being cut off from energy sources not only in Azerbaijan but Turkey.
So what did the Armenians do? They fired up Metsamor again in 1995.
Today, it provides Armenia with about 40 percent of the country’s electric power.
Its defenders say that the fact it survived the 1988 quake attests to its good design. More sober observers think it’s only a matter of time before something goes horribly wrong.
Both Russia and the U.S. have pressed the Armenians to build a new, safer plant, though all of that region of the world is earthquake-prone. So far, the Armenians have dragged their feet.
The latest plans are for Metsamor to be decommissioned in 2017.
That’s a long, long time to keep your fingers crossed. — J.R.[[In-content Ad]]
But troubling as events at Fukushima have been, there are other active nuclear sites with a far, far greater potential for a disaster of catastrophic proportions.
The worst may be in Armenia.
There, in a town about halfway between Yerevan, the capital, and Gyumri, the country’s second largest city, is Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant.
It holds the dubious distinction of being the most dangerous nuclear reactor in the former Soviet Union.
It’s also located right in the middle of an earthquake zone.
The reactor is old, and as we understand it, it’s built on the Chernobyl model. That is, it doesn’t have the sort of sophisticated containment vessel that has kept the Fukushima situation from growing worse.
Built in the 1970s, it was brought online in 1980, using technology and safety standards that would be laughable in the power industry today.
Eight years after it went into operation, a devastating earthquake hit near Gyumri. The epicenter of the 6.9-magnitude quake was about 45 miles away.
Not surprisingly, Metsamor was deactivated after the quake. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Armenia found itself in an armed conflict with its neighbor Azerbaijan. That conflict — which has been in a stalemate for 17 years now — resulted in Armenia being cut off from energy sources not only in Azerbaijan but Turkey.
So what did the Armenians do? They fired up Metsamor again in 1995.
Today, it provides Armenia with about 40 percent of the country’s electric power.
Its defenders say that the fact it survived the 1988 quake attests to its good design. More sober observers think it’s only a matter of time before something goes horribly wrong.
Both Russia and the U.S. have pressed the Armenians to build a new, safer plant, though all of that region of the world is earthquake-prone. So far, the Armenians have dragged their feet.
The latest plans are for Metsamor to be decommissioned in 2017.
That’s a long, long time to keep your fingers crossed. — J.R.[[In-content Ad]]
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