Professor Heorhi F. Lepin, a physicist, co-chairman of the public association ‘Scientists For A Nuclear-Free Belarus’, who took part in the rectification of the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster, warns the Belarusians against launching the nuclear power plant in Astravets.
According to him, the site chosen is no good and even dangerous – once an earthquake happened on the spot; there is an intersection of crust fractures. However, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka called the scientists who are critical of nuclear-power engineering and particularly the Astravets NPP ‘undercover bandits’ and ‘enemies of the people’, Lepin stressed.
Lepin, who voluntarily worked at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant from 1986 to 1992, said that he often used to sit behind the major who was in command of the soldiers cleaning the roof of the station.
“After returning from the roof, they handed over dosimeters to him, the major inserted them into the device, which showed how much radiation they had accumulated. The device went off scale, but the major wrote ‘24.5’ in the journal because 25 was the limit,” said Lepin.
The would-be Belarusian NPP with two VVER-1200 reactors with a total capacity of 2,400 MW is being built according to the Russian project near Astravets in Hrodna region. The first power unit is scheduled to be commissioned in 2019, the second one — in 2020.
It is expected that the NPP will send its used nuclear fuel to Russia, but it will be stored in Belarus for about 10 years before the shipment.
Lithuania has repeatedly criticized the construction of the nuclear power plant and encouraged the rest of the countries of the United Europe to not buy electricity from the would-be NPP. Belarus’ neighbour is not only concerned about the proximity of the station to Vilnius, but also with a number of emergencies during the NPP construction. Among the emergencies are a reactor vessel incident, when it fell during the transportation, the collapse of the concrete structure at the site between the reactors. Our channel was the first to report on the incident. Before the official request of the Lithuanian side, representatives of the Belarusian NPP denied this information.
Belsat.eu
