Will the country survive this winter - Oleksandr Dubovy

For almost seventy years, nuclear energy has been in demand and widespread throughout the world. The development of industry, the increase in the population and the rise in prices for fossil fuels in the second half of the last century gave a powerful impetus to the construction of new nuclear power plants and the expansion of existing ones. However, this progress was slowed down by the accident at the Fukushima-1 station, which occurred as a result of an earthquake and tsunami that hit the coast of Japan. Immediately after the accident, anti-nuclear environmental activists forced the governments of some countries to put nuclear projects on hold (Belgium, Italy). And the most radical course to abandon nuclear energy and switch to alternative energy sources was declared in Germany.

However, despite all the efforts aimed at the development of renewable energy, neither from an economic point of view, nor within the framework of the program to achieve carbon neutrality of the economy by 2050, green energy has not been able to meet the rapid growth in demand for electricity. In addition, repeated blackouts from Texas to the Balkans have shown how unstable renewable energy sources can be due to climate change and a sharp increase in consumption, how they destabilize the energy balance and pose threats to the population and business. In contrast, nuclear power plants, which provide baseload energy generation, while solar and wind power plants are unable to do so due to the lack of wind or sun.

In general, all these problems, and especially the need to sharply reduce the use of Russian gas after the start of a full-scale invasion in 2022, have led to the return to the agenda of the issue of nuclear energy, which has already reached “pre-Fukushima” levels and even exceeded them. The USA, France, China, Great Britain, Finland, Japan currently consider nuclear energy as an important component of their energy security and are not going to abandon it. Poland, Turkey, the UAE and other countries are planning to build the first nuclear power plants.

Course on the atom

In addition to independence from climate change, there are other factors contributing to the renaissance of nuclear energy. First, after Fukushima, all countries with nuclear power plants, including Ukraine, passed stress tests to ensure compliance with “post-Fukushima” requirements.

Currently, the world is building the most advanced reactor designs in terms of safety, generation three plus power units, which, in addition to providing consumers with an inexpensive, reliable and environmentally friendly source of energy, also operate in maneuvering mode. That is, they allow reducing or increasing the volume of electricity production depending on the load, which is an extremely important option for maintaining the system's operability during peak load hours.

Second, even in light of the tragedies of Fukushima and Chernobyl, nuclear power remains one of the most environmentally friendly forms of electricity generation. Emissions of greenhouse gases and other air pollutants from nuclear power plants (NPPs) during operation are close to zero. While the negative impact on air pollution, human health and the environment, for example, from coal-fired power plants, has been much worse and has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people over the past decade.

In addition, the problem of recycling and recycling of used solar panels and wind turbine blades still remains unregulated. Their recycling is expensive and provokes additional carbon dioxide emissions during the transportation of parts that have reached the end of their service life. Therefore, the pollution from the recycling of elements of renewable energy sources is actually greater than the emissions of traditional energy. And while scientists are trying to solve this problem, landfills of blades and batteries are growing every year.

Ultimately, the various discussions on the future of energy agree on one thing: achieving global climate goals (keeping the global temperature increase below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C) is impossible without the use of nuclear energy. That is why the EU confirmed the environmental status of nuclear energy on January 1, 2023, adding it to the list of clean energy types in the EU's green taxonomy.

Despite the different attitudes towards nuclear energy, there is at least one advantage that is hard to deny: it is much cheaper than green energy. Germany, which at one time adopted a program to decommission nuclear power plants - partly under pressure from greens, partly due to the efforts of Gazprom lobbyists who promoted the expanded consumption of Russian gas - is now reaping the negative fruits of its reforms. If the German economy shrank by 0.2% in 2023, then the French economy, where almost 70% of electricity is produced at nuclear power plants, on the contrary, is growing. Experts explain this, in particular, by the high cost of electricity in Germany, which is consumed in large quantities by industrial giants. So if we look to the future, nuclear energy is exactly the source of cheap and clean energy that humanity needs.

Ukraine's energy policy under question

As an inheritance from the USSR, Ukraine received a powerful nuclear generation, which allowed it to annually produce about 50% of the country's total electricity. Twelve operating reactors were built in Soviet times, and three more - already during the time of independent Ukraine. This is the sixth reactor at the Zaporizhzhia NPP (1996), the second reactor at the Khmelnytskyi NPP (2004) and the fourth reactor at the Rivne NPP (2006). Occupying seventh place in the world and fifth in Europe in terms of the number of reactors, Ukraine was one of the largest exporters of electricity to Europe.

However, the war dealt a devastating blow to Ukraine's energy sector, from which the country will only be able to recover in a few years. Transformers were destroyed, gigawatts of generating capacity were destroyed - hydroelectric and thermal power plants, which allowed for a rapid increase in generation during the morning and evening peak hours. Wind and solar energy are expensive, and the amount of energy they produce does not cover the country's basic needs. And importing expensive electricity from Europe is also not enough to fully cover the deficit in the energy system.

In fact, only those nuclear power plants that continue to operate stably remain in the most operational condition. Even the shelling of the Zaporizhzhia NPP cannot penetrate the protective shell of the reactor, which all modern reactors are equipped with. Steel and reinforced concrete reliably protect the most vulnerable parts of the station. In addition, the enemy understands perfectly well that a direct missile strike on a nuclear facility would be “suicidal”, and the consequences in the event of an emergency would affect not only Ukraine, the EU, but also the aggressor country itself.

The feasibility of expanding nuclear power to cover the electricity deficit is also recognized by our American partners. “In the short term, expanding nuclear power is a completely logical step along with other efforts made by all allies,” said Penny Pritzker, the US Special Representative for Ukraine’s Economic Recovery. In addition, the development of nuclear power, in particular small modular reactor , will indicate that the country is moving in the same direction as Europe – towards decarbonization and environmental protection. In general, Ukraine’s nuclear generation is quite powerful, stable, and cost-effective.

Of course, it is necessary to build new power units, in particular at the Khmelnytskyi NPP. This is a win-win way to provide the country with base generation for decades. But is this construction the number one priority? After all, the results of their work can be expected only in eight to nine years. In addition, in order to begin construction of the third and fourth power units of the Khmelnytskyi NPP, the parliament must adopt a law with an up-to-date financial plan (amounts, sources of coverage) and completion dates.

However, now, when the population and business are facing massive power outages, and a cold and dark winter awaits us, we need immediate steps to cover the existing energy balance deficit. Namely: the construction and connection to the power grids of small generating units (gas turbine, gas piston, cogeneration, etc.). These will be the very saving percentages that will allow us to survive and protect the population, especially in large cities, in the winter. Moreover, distributed generation from hundreds of small power plants of various types is the best safeguard against large-scale destruction of the power system due to missile attacks.

However, the actions of the Ministry of Energy specifically regarding energy decentralization raise many questions. It is enough to give one example, when the Ministry of Energy could not turn on the gas turbine mini-thermal power plant, donated to Ukraine by the United States, for sixteen months. Similarly, officials of the department failed to establish effective protection of existing energy capacities, and the worst thing is that no one was held accountable for this.

Even more worrying are the actions of the Ministry of Energy aimed at destroying the country's design industry. Thus, thanks to the "efforts" of the ministry, powerful scientific and design institutions that independently implemented technologically complex tasks for the design and construction of energy complexes have completely ceased their activities. In particular, SE "UkrNDPRI Industrial Technologies", SE "Kyiv Institute of Engineering Surveys and Research "Energoproekt", Kharkov Institute "Energoproekt" and others.

Currently, attempts are underway to close the last independent design company - the Kyiv Research and Design Institute "Energoproekt" (KIEP), which has been the main designer of nuclear facilities for many decades and has unique experience and personnel. The destruction of KIEP will allow NNEGC "Energoatom" to independently design the completion of the Khmelnytskyi NPP power units and, at its discretion, determine the corruption amounts directly in the design documentation, having lost control from an independent design organization. In general, a country that plans to develop nuclear energy must have a powerful design industry and guarantee it normal working conditions. I hope that the next leadership of the Ministry of Energy will understand this better than the current one.

So, in the short term, the country should focus on building distributed generation, and in the medium and long term, the potential of nuclear energy can and should be used to ensure the country's economic recovery, energy security, and achievement of global goals (combating climate change). There is no doubt that an audit and a plan for the development of the energy sector are needed, taking into account the rapid, I hope, recovery of the industry. But for this, first of all, professional and responsible leadership of the industry is needed, which, unfortunately, is currently lacking.