If a fire and explosion threat arises at the Armenian Metsamor nuclear power plant, how and who will prevent the emergency situation is leaving the world to wonder. The leading Georgian media sources are wondering too.
Georgia is raising an alarm and demanding the shutdown of Metsamor power plant. Publications demanding to halt the operation of the nuclear plant were issued by several editions at once, calling it the most dangerous nuclear power plant in the world. Georgia is concerned about indifferent position of IAEA towards the Metsamor problem which specialists find even more dangerous than Chernobyl. If it blows, so be it. The second issue that the Georgia media sources are concerned about is where does the spent nuclear fuel disappear?
Few people know that the main radiation “cloud”, which emerged after the explosion at Chernobyl nuclear power plant, went to the north east, Georgian media sources write. The main area of the radiation rainfall is located at the junction of Mogilevsk and Gomelsk regions of Byelorussia and Bryansk region of Russia. Residents of many dwelling settlements have been move out from here because of high radiation rate.
It is about 180-200km to the north – north-east of Chernobyl. The distance between Metsamor nuclear power plant and the area of the Georgia capital (Tbilisi) is around the same.
As the Georgian media sources write, the facility is located in a dangerous 8-9 magnitude zone. According to Georgian experts, such earthquakes happen here once in several decades. And unlike Chernobyl where it was only the energy block which suffered, everything in the vicinities of the nuclear power plant can be destroyed by an earthquake and preventing a catastrophe will be unreal.
It is noteworthy that Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant which has two hopelessly outdated reactors today was built between 1969 and 1977. EU insisted on either shutting-down or modernization of the nuclear power plant, and was ready to allocate 200 million EUR for it without compensation (Euratom-Ministry of Energy of Armenia negotiations, 2007). However, later it admitted an “impossibility of updating the station up to the level fully complying with international safety standards” and made a condition to shut it down!
The problem resides just in finding alternative sources of energy and fixing the date of its shutdown. Shift to renewable sources of energy, as well as settlement of the issue on expansion of regional gas supplies could have been a solution of the issue.
