Estonia wants nuclear power

Eesti Energia, Estonia's state-owned electricity supplier, wants to invest in a new nuclear power station that could be located in Lithuania to back-up and possibly replace oil-shale power plants in Narva.

Construction of a nuclear power plant to replace the Soviet-era reactors at Ignalina is still in the talking stage, but Eesti Energia officials have expressed interest in the idea, saying it would be cheaper and more environmentally friendly than burning oil-shale.

"Estonia should become one of the owners of the Ignalina nuclear station and support its construction financially," Eesti Energia CEO Gunnar Okk told the newspaper Postimees last week.

Okk said that the plant would also help stabilize electricity prices. Power from oil-shale burning could become too costly in the future due to restrictions on its use by the European Union. Estonia is one of 10 countries set to join the EU next year.

Specialists from the Ministry of Economic Affairs say that nuclear energy production at a modern facility is environmentally safer than oil-shale production.

Lithuania, which already has a trained work force from its Ignalinia reactors, would be the most logical place to build a new plant, officials agreed.

The plan would include incorporation of existing infrastructure from the existing Chernobyl-style reactors, which the EU said must be closed by 2009, into the new plant. Construction of a new power plant would require EU approval.

Closure of the existing plant will leave electricity shortfalls in Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus and parts of western Russia.

The oil-shale plant in Narva and the Ignalinia nuclear plants are among the biggest producers of electricity in the region, churning out 3,000 megawatts per hour. The largest is in Sosnovy Bor, Russia, which produces 4,000 megawatts.

Ants Pauls, the former general director of Narva Power Plants and now a member of Parliament, said Eesti Energia's investment in a new nuclear plant in Lithuania would bring into question other investments the company had slated for the immediate future.

The company should rethink plans to invest 155 million euros in Narva Power Plants over the next year, he said.

Eesti Energia also plans to take part in "Estlink," a 110 million euro power cable that will link Estonian and Latvian energy suppliers to the Scandinavia and Nordic power grid.

Companies from the two Baltic states -Eesti Energia and Latvia's monopoly supplier Latvenergo -and Finland's Pohjolan Voima and Helsinkin Energia signed agreements March 28 on the 315-megawatt underwater cable link.

The Finnish companies would pay 50 percent of the costs. The cable should be operational by 2005, according to officials, and would reduce the Baltic states' dependency on Russian power.

Estonia and Latvia are both hooked up to the Russian power grid. Pauls said the idea of a new nuclear power plant in Lithuania was tempting but needed to be cost-effective.

"The thought is attractive, but we have to calculate everything," he said. "I do not think that a new nuclear power plant in Lithuania would provide us with cheaper electricity because of high construction costs."

Ignalina's existing reactors offer cheap electricity because they were built in the Soviet era and the EU is footing most of the bill for their closure, Pauls added.

Aleksei Gunter in Tallinn
and Steve Paulikas in Vilnius
contributed to this report.