WASHINGTON, March 27 (UPI) -- Last year's record-high oil prices renewed worldwide interest in alternative forms of energy and gave nuclear power a new lease on life, particularly in countries bereft of hydrocarbon resources. While many in the West think of the former Soviet Union as an energy El Dorado, not all of its republics were blessed with abundant energy reserves.
Armenia, unlike its neighbor Azerbaijan, has little in the way of oil and natural gas and has long relied on nuclear power to generate a significant portion of its electricity. Now, Russia's Federal Atomic Energy Agency, Rosatom, has begun a joint venture with the Armenian government, the Armenian-Russian Mining Co., to prospect for and develop the Caucasian nation's uranium reserves, which has Armenian activists deeply concerned about the possible environmental consequences. For power-starved Armenia, however, the concerns take a backseat to the possibility that the enterprise could eventually both produce nuclear fuel for the country's sole nuclear power plant, Metsamor, as well as become a source for much-needed foreign currency through uranium exports.
Details of the joint venture are few, but the company, using Soviet-era geological data, will prospect for uranium in the mineral-rich region of Syunik in the south of the country. Syunik already hosts copper mines in Kapan and Kajaran. The uranium project's projected primary mining site at Lernadzor is 2 miles away from the Kajaran copper works. Last year Rosatom chief Sergei Kiriyenko estimated that Syunik and its surrounding territory could contain "up to 60,000 tons" of uranium ore.
It is the country's aging nuclear facility that currently concerns Armenian environmental groups as well as those in neighboring countries. Twenty miles west of the capital Yerevan, Armenia's Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant was built in 1970s and houses two VVER-440 Model V230 nuclear reactors. Metsamor, which currently produces about 40 percent of the country's electricity, is located in a seismically active zone and was closed even before the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union because of the devastating Dec. 7, 1988, earthquake in Spitak.
The massive tremor, with an estimated magnitude of 6.9, killed more than 25,000 people and caused more than $4 billion in damage. Following the earthquake, the Armenian government closed Metsamor's Unit 1 reactor in February 1989 and Unit 2 the next month.
The 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union devastated the Armenian economy, and pressure to restart Metsamor increased after a Turkish and Azeri fuel embargo shut down a natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan. Ankara and Baku imposed the blockade because of the ongoing Azeri-Armenian military clash over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. By the winter of 1994-95, subsequent fuel shortages meant that residents of Yerevan were frequently reduced to only an hour or two of electricity a day.
In October 1995 the ongoing energy shortages combined with spiraling inflation compelled the Armenian government to reopen the facility's 408-megawatt Unit 2 reactor, which increased Yerevan's daily electricity ration to 10-12 hours per day.
Reopening the facility was controversial. Five months before Unit 2 was restarted, International Atomic Energy Agency specialists visited Metsamor to assess the seismic characteristics of the site and concluded that the plant's seismic-protection measures were satisfactory. Both the United States and the European Union strongly opposed reopening the facility, however, saying that Metsamor's Soviet-era reactors were unsafe. Over the last decade, both Washington and Brussels have given tens of millions of dollars in aid to upgrade Metsamor's safety systems while simultaneously pressuring the Armenian government to close the facility as soon as possible. Environmentalists throughout the region have also protested the plant's reopening, but Yerevan, pleading economic realities, has remained oblivious to the complaints.
Metsamor is situated only 10 miles from the Turkish border, and Turkish non-governmental organizations have not been shy about expressing their concerns. Derman Boztok, secretary-general of Turkish Health Professionals for Peace and Environment and Against Nuclear Threat, said, "The whole of eastern and southeastern Anatolia would be affected in the event of an accident at Metsamor. Both the International Atomic Energy Agency and the European Union have declared the plant is the most dangerous power plant in the world. This power plant should be shut down as soon as possible."
For the last six years Russian company Inter RAO UES has operated Metsamor under an agreement to help pay off Armenia's debts to Moscow. Metsamor is currently scheduled to operate until 2016, but that will not be the end of Armenia's nuclear saga.
Besides the Syunik mining facilities, Rosatom's Kiriyenko said that for the past year Moscow has been holding discussions with the Armenian government about constructing a new nuclear power plant in Armenia on the Metsamor site to replace the decrepit facility. Kiriyenko told journalists, "By 2010 it is necessary to conduct all preparatory works in order to start the construction of the new nuclear power plant in 2010 or at the latest by the beginning of 2011."
Given the fact that the new facility would probably be fueled by indigenous uranium, it seems unlikely that environmental concerns would derail the project. Unless some of Armenia's hydrocarbon-rich neighbors are willing to provide either cash or subsidized energy alternatives, it is more than likely that Armenians must eventually reconcile themselves to living next door to a new nuclear-energy facility in one of the most seismically active regions in the Caucasus.
