Ukrainian Nuclear Industry Saved by Extension

Ukraine has moved to update its nuclear reactors. Source: Wikipedia Commons

While Ukraine has diversified its sources of electricity via nuclear, coal and natural gas generation, the country’s energy infrastructure is much more precarious than it appears to be at first glance. The country has little in the way of natural gas reserves to feed its combined cycle plants, and is largely dependent on Russian production and transmission via the Soyuz and Brotherhood pipelines, which transport 16 percent of European gas consumption. Ukraine’s sizeable coal deposits in the Donbass region have largely been cut off due to the ongoing conflict, leaving nuclear energy as the only reliable source of large and consistent base load for the grid.

With more than 55 percent of total generation coming from nuclear sources, it seems that Ukrainian energy regulators have been forced to take steps to keep existing capacity online. Many of the country’s existing plants are approaching the end of their operating lives, but there has been substantial support to provide operating extensions contingent on safety inspections. Units one and two of Zaporizhia’s’s five-reactor generating facility, the largest in the country, have been given life expiry extensions, making that a total of six reactors nationwide receiving the same treatment.   

Critics argue that this policy of indefinite plant extensions is not prudent and full of hidden risks, a concern held by many, given Ukraine’s history of using poorly managed and designed reactors with  the same outdated graphite moderation used at Chernobyl. Despite concerns about operational safety, these plants are still highly dependent on Russian contractors, given that they are based on Soviet designs. The lead supplier of fuel rods for the Zaporizhia plant and many others is a subsidiary of Rosatom, the Russian state commercial nuclear development agency. Even though Westinghouse Nuclear, an American subsidiary of the Toshiba group, has begun to deliver fuel to the Zaporizhia plant accounting for approximately one-third of total demand, it can hardly be said that Ukraine’s nuclear industry operates independently of Russia.

Ukraine’s energy future can be said to be opaque at best, and there remains a considerable number of pressing issues which will continue to pose challenges over the next few years.