Environmentalists protest against boosting Kola NPP reactor

Nature and Youth, Bellona, Ekodialog and other NGOs claim the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the experiment is of low quality and that there is no need for more energy production in the Murmansk region for the time being.

At a public hearing in Polyarnye Zori last week Kola Nuclear Power Plant (Kola NPP) announced that it has received license to start testing reactor No. 4 at 107 percent capacity, BarentsObserver reported.

Ecologists gathered at the meeting said that the proposed EIA document, like the project itself, was prepared at an extremely low level and that some parts of the document contain obvious errors or omissions.

- Increase of the thermal power capacity at the Kola NPP reactor will inevitably lead to declining safety and increase of emissions, said Andrey Ozharovsky, a nuclear physicist and Bellona expert. – It will increase the load on the reactor vessel, pipe system, steam generators and fuel assemblies. This will lead to both a higher probability of an accident and a growing number of gas-leaky fuel assemblies, a significant increase in radioactivity of the first circuit and, as acknowledged in the EIA, a twofold increase in emissions of radionuclides through the plant’s vent pipe, Nature and Youth says in a press release.

Environmentalists also believe that the project is not necessary. – Murmansk is a region with excess in energy production, and one or two reactors at the Kola NPP are permanently disabled, the press release reads. - A regional strategy for energy conservation and efficiency is adopted, and Shtokman Development AG has stated that nuclear power will not be involved in development of the Shtokman project.