THREE MUSKETEERS: The three Baltic prime ministers, Ansip, Kalvitis and Brazauskas, agree that nuclear power is one answer to the region's energy concerns.
RIGA - Amidst growing international concerns about energy independence and prices, the prime ministers of the three Baltic countries announced this week they would support the construction of a new nuclear plant in Lithuania. The ministers said the region's three dominant power producers 's Lietuvos Energija, Latvenergo and Eesti Energia 's will be invited to invest in the project, expected to cost 2-3 billion euros, though it is clear that any such project would require enormous injections of international finance, including from the European Union.
A communique released after the Feb. 27 meeting in Trakai between Lithuania's Algirdas Brazauskas, Estonia's Andrus Ansip and Latvia's Aigars Kalvitis highlighted a range of measures designed to "meet short-term gas supply disruptions in the EU," and "to avoid dependence from a dominant supplier of energy resources."
The statement outlined a range of plans to more closely integrate the Baltic electricity grids with those of other European countries, with the centerpiece being the construction by 2015 of a modern nuclear power plant at Ignalina in Lithuania. This is currently the site of a Soviet-era nuclear facility scheduled to be fully decommissioned by 2009.
Despite lingering memories of the Chernobyl accident, the national leaders see the atom as a solution to inter-linked political, economic and security issues. The announcement also follows international concern over gas supplies after Russia reduced supplies to Ukraine earlier this year, a move that affected gas consumers in other European countries.
"Gas prices are linked to the prices of fossil fuels on the world market, and in this field the EU is completely dependant on supplies from Russia. As a result, they can be used as an economic and political weapon," Kalvitis was reported as saying in the Latvian newspaper Diena.
Estonian PM Ansip also offered his support, and was quoted as saying, "We are interested in this project, and we would like to invest into the construction of a new power plant and be a partner in this project, alongside Latvia and Lithuania."
But officials stress that the decision is not just about security. Aigars Stokenbergs, an economic adviser to Kalvitis, told The Baltic Times that the plant makes good economic sense.
Under a special deal, the Baltics currently receive natural gas from Russia for half the price paid by other European states, but it is "just a matter of time" before Balts will have to pay as much as their EU counterparts. Coupled with other factors such as the looming closure of oil-shale power plants in northeastern Estonia, this will lead to power shortfalls and sharply drive up energy costs.
Stokenbergs said this would significantly raise the price competitiveness of the nuclear option, and he also played down fears of cost-blowouts in construction, arguing that the new plant will be modeled on projects already undertaken elsewhere in Europe, halving the expense of developing a facility from scratch.
No decision has yet been made on how the new plant would be funded, and whether private investors will be involved. Neither is it a universal solution to Baltic power needs in the coming decades. According to Kalvitis, it would be desirable to build a coal-fired power station to meet needs in the period between 2009 and 2015 and beyond.
Local experts are aware of unease over nuclear safety in Eastern Europe, in light of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident. The human factor will be crucial in avoiding a similar scenario, said Andris Abramenkovs, director of Latvia's State Hazardous Waste Management Agency, which runs a small experimental reactor and an associated waste facility near Riga. The primary cause of the Chernobyl melt-down, he added, was that workers were running experiments on a simulated accident, which went terribly wrong.
According to Abramenkovs, this went against international principles on managing nuclear plants, which have to be made a cornerstone of operations. "Safety should have the highest priority, and this can be achieved if you have the right staff training and the right work culture," he said.
