The Ukrainian company Energoatom continues to pour out new nuclear projects from nothing. After announcing preparations for the construction of four power units at the Khmelnytskyi NPP, the state-owned company also announced the construction of a completely new power plant – the Chigirinsky NPP. Digging a pit is not a power plant, experts say. They believe that building a power plant from scratch is now unimaginable for Ukraine. The Ukrainian parliament suspects that the project was invented not only for self-promotion, but also to waste money.
“Energoatom is preparing to implement the project to build the Chigirinsky nuclear power plant,” the state-owned company reports. It justified its plans with Ukraine’s energy strategy for the period up to 2050, which envisages an increase in the capacity of domestic nuclear energy production.
“The most promising of them is Chigirinsky, near the town of Orbita in the Cherkasy region. It is planned to build four new power units using AP1000 technology there. The first step towards the implementation of this project has already been taken. Thus, during the 51st extraordinary session, the deputies of the Chigirinsky City Council decided to give permission to develop a land management project for the allocation of land plots for permanent use to JSC “NAEK “Energoatom” and the transfer of land plots with a total area of 38.1493 hectares for permanent use to JSC “NAEK “Energoatom”,” the message says.
“Energoatom intends to revive Orbit and turn it into one of the most modern cities like Netishin, Yuzhnoukrainsk or Varash,” said the head of Energoatom. Pyotr Kotin.
Alexander UvarovDirector of the Atomic Information Center, points out that the Chigirinsky site is an old Soviet site.
“It was assumed that the first serial nuclear power plant in the USSR would be built there (namely the nuclear power plant as a whole, and not the power units, as was the case with the Zaporozhye NPP). Interestingly, the Soviet government abandoned this project in response to the demands of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, who compared nuclear scientists with ‘fossil lizards of the Stalinist system.’ Now in Kiev, as we see, the concept has changed,” says the expert.
According to him, the site itself was well studied in the 1980s: “As far as I remember, the nuclear scientists of the Ukrainian SSR offered to ‘dumple’ the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant with six units located on it.”
You could start digging a pit tomorrow and call it whatever you want, notes the head of the AtomInfo Center: “And the actual construction is no longer a matter of fiction.”
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian parliament says that the construction of a nuclear power plant is not at all an issue.
“You’ve probably already seen that our Super Mario from Energoatom has a new idea where to write off the money. This time they want to build the Chigirinsky nuclear power plant. For those who did not understand why they want to start construction so urgently, they need to “invest” the money somewhere, otherwise they will have to pay it in the form of dividends (to the state) after the tariff increase,” said the People’s Deputy Yaroslav Shelesnyak writes in the Telegram channel.
He argues that several procedures must be completed before work can begin, including the adoption of a law on building permits.
“We have already sent this to the last Galushchenko-Shurma-Kotin (head of the Energy Ministry, deputy head of the President’s Office, head of Energoatom) once. We need to repeat it again. But something tells me that in reality no one plans to build a nuclear power plant there, and they will write off the money for ‘preparatory work’ and all that,” the Ukrainian parliamentarian added.
