Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant is a two-unit RBMK-1500 nuclear power station in Visaginas, Lithuania. It is named after a larger nearby town Ignalina. Unit #1 was closed in December 2004, as a condition of Lithuania's entry into the European Union; the plant is similar to the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in its lack of a robust containment building. The remaining unit, as of 2006, supplied about 70% of Lithuania's electrical demand. Unit #2 is scheduled for closure at the end of 2009. Proposals have been made to construct another nuclear power plant next to Ignalina, at Visaginas, Lithuania, but the global financial crisis of 2009 makes financing a multi-billion dollar new plant a challenging proposition.

Reactors

The Ignalina nuclear power plant, commonly referred to in Lithuanian as IAE (Ignalinos Atominė Elektrinė), contains two RBMK-1500 water-cooled graphite-moderated channel-type power reactors. The Soviet-designed RBMK-1500 reactor was originally the most powerful reactor in the world with an electrical power capacity of 1500 MW, but has now been succeeded by other nuclear reactors. After the Chernobyl accident the reactor was de-rated to 1360 MW. These are of a similar type of reactor (RBMK-1000) as at the Chernobyl power plant, hence the European Union's insistence on closing them.

Unit #1 came online in 1983, and was closed on December 31, 2004. Unit #2 came online in 1987 and is expected to close on/by December 31, 2009. Unit #2 typically goes off-line for annual maintenance for 30-days in August/September. According to an Ignalina NPP press release, on 6 June 2009 at 9.15 AM (local) the automatic reactor protection system was actuated and Unit #2 was shut down. No radiation was released. Plant officials decided to keep it off-line for thirty days, performing the annual preventative maintenance in June, instead of 29 August- 27 September as originally scheduled. The preventive maintenance period is scheduled to continue until 5 July 2009.

Plans to build a third and fourth reactor at Ignalina were never finished because of the public backlash against nuclear power following the Chernobyl accident of April 1986: the partially completed Unit #3 was later demolished.

History

Preparations for the construction started in 1974. The field work started four years later. In 1986 Unit #2 was completed. Originally, Unit #2 was scheduled for launch in 1986, but its commissioning was postponed for a year because of the Chernobyl accident. The construction of Unit #3 was suspended and in 1989 it began to be demolished. The town of Visaginas was artificially built to accommodate the plant's workers. There was no village at that place previously, making it one of the most prominent examples of "Greenfield investment", a situation when a large plant, town, or other industrial object is built in an empty field with no prior infrastructure. The location was chosen next to the biggest lake in Lithuania, Drūkšiai, to provide water to cool the pipes. A part of this lake is now shared with Belarus. Some environmental activists are afraid that the lake is too small for such a powerful plant and say that the average water temperature has increased by a few degrees Celsius, possibly leading to negative consequences on the lake ecosystem.

In 2005 Lithuanian authorities told that Russian agent Vladimir Alganov, earlier deported from Poland, had been granted a Lithuanian visa for some reason and he had met managers of Ignalina in 2003.

Closedown

As a condition of entry into the European Union, Lithuania agreed in 1999 to close existing units of the station. Prior to the closure of Unit #1, and even allowing for de-rating of the station, the plant supplied 80% of Lithuania's electricity. Lithuania together with France are two countries that are most dependent on nuclear power. The European Union agreed to pay substantial decommissioning costs and compensation, with payments continuing until 2013.

Closing of the plant faced fierce opposition from the Lithuanian people. The plant provides income to most of the local people. To compensate for this, a project was started to encourage tourism and other small businesses. Others were afraid that the price of electricity would skyrocket or that Lithuania would be left to cope with gigantic costs of decommissioning the plant and the nuclear waste.

A 2008 referendum proposed extending the operation of reactor 2 until a new nuclear plant is completed as a replacement; the referendum gained 1,155,192 support votes, but failed due to the requirement that 50% of voters participate. President Valdas Adamkus opposed the measure on grounds that continued operation would not respect Lithuania's international commitments.

The European Union wants its members to move away from energy reliance on Russian gas and oil and, thus, supports the construction of new nuclear power plants. However, the Union sees Ignalina plant's lack of a containment building as a high risk. The EU Commission fears an accident at either Ignalina or Kozloduy would cause European public opinion to turn against new nuclear plants, much as the Chernobyl accident did in 1986.

New power plant

There was discussion during the 1990s and 2000s of building a new nuclear power plant at the same site, forestalling the likelihood of an upcoming power shortage in the region. On 27 February 2006, at a meeting in Trakai, the Prime Ministers of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia signed a communiqué which invited state-owned energy companies in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to invest in the design and construction of a new nuclear power plant in Lithuania.
On 28 June 2007, Lithuania's parliament adopted a law on building a new nuclear power plant, the formal start of a project. On 30 July 2008, the power companies of Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, and Poland agreed to set up the Visaginas Nuclear Plant Company, which will be responsible for construction of the new power plant with a capacity of 3,000 to 3,200 megawatts.
The government of Lithuania remains committed to the Visaginas project and hopes to solicit construction bids by late 2009/early 2010, with a completion date of 2018-2020. While several international companies are interested in bidding on the project, the question of how it will be financed amidst a global recession raises doubts on if, not when, ground breaking will begin at Visaginas.

See also

• Chernobyl disaster