Turks ill at ease as Russia poised to build nuclear plant

While Turkey is getting closer to realizing its first nuclear power plant, to be constructed by the Russian state-controlled Atomstroyexport JSC in Turkey’s southern province of Mersin, Turkish public opinion seems to be growing uneasy concerning the level of technology the Russians have to offer to Turkey and the overall safety conditions of the nuclear reactor they are to build, since the bitter memories of the Chernobyl disaster are still fresh in people’s minds.

On April 26, 1986, the world witnessed the worst nuclear power plant disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, which was then part of the Soviet Union. After the incident the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) created the International Nuclear Safety Advisor Group (INSAG) to investigate the causes of the disaster. It determined the accident was caused by gross violations of operating rules and regulations. “During preparation and testing of the turbine generator under run-down conditions using the auxiliary load, personnel disconnected a series of technical protection systems and breached the most important operational safety provisions for conducting a technical exercise,” stated the INSAG report. The Soviet-constructed nuclear energy plant’s catastrophic disaster was due to a lack of knowledge of nuclear physics and faulty engineering in the construction and operation of the nuclear reactor.

Since the Soviet example of a nuclear plant disaster is etched in history, concerns about the safety of Russian (formerly Soviet) nuclear technology have arisen due to the Chernobyl disaster, bringing up an obvious question: Has Russia improved its expertise and technology in this field?

‘Nothing to worry about’

Speaking to Sunday’s Zaman, Sinan Ülgen, who is a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe in Brussels and chairman of the Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies (EDAM) in İstanbul, said Russian technology is considered to be sufficiently safe. He noted the reactor offered to Turkey is from a totally different generation than the infamous Chernobyl design. “The only caveat in this respect is that there is as of yet no operational track record for the proposed reactor in Akkuyu. By the time the reactor is built, however, a similar reactor will have already been completed and started operation in China,” added Ülgen.

Ülgen stated the French Areva group has probably the most advanced technology in the world but underlined that Areva’s problem is that their reactor design is too expensive. He points out that in terms of technology, Japan, the US and South Korea come on the heels of France. China is also rapidly advancing in the field of nuclear energy, but it is particularly interested in meeting its own energy demand rather than exporting its technology.

Nuclear power sine qua non

Separately, Ülgen also touched on Turkey’s effort to construct its first nuclear power plant. The chairman of EDAM said Turkey needs to diversify its energy sources and include nuclear energy in its portfolio of electricity generation methods. “The construction of a nuclear power plant would enable Turkey to increase its technological knowhow in this crucial field. The question is really whether allowing Russia to construct the first nuclear power plant serves the purpose of improving Turkey’s energy security in view of the already high dependence on Russia in terms of natural gas supplies. Yet these doubts can be laid to rest in view of the model adopted for the construction of the Akkuyu plant in which Russia has taken on all the financial risk of building and operating the plant. Thus, Russia will not merely be a supplier as is the case with natural gas but a significant investor undertaking a significant commercial risk,” said Ülgen. “Therefore, from this perspective one can argue that this investment increases the interdependence between the two countries rather than making Turkey more dependent on Russia.”

In May of this year Turkey reached an agreement with Russia to construct its first nuclear power plant in Mersin’s Akkuyu district. According to the agreement, the Russian state-led company Atomstroyexport JSC will construct the Akkuyu nuclear plant and have a controlling stake in the project. The project is estimated to cost about $20 billion and was approved by Parliament in mid-July.