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Environmentalists petition Lukashenka, Medvedev against nuclear power plant project in Belarus

Representatives of nine environmental organizations in Belarus and Russia have petitioned Alyaksandr Lukashenka and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, to abandon plans to build a nuclear power plant in Belarus.

The nuclear power plant project would benefit neither the Belarusian nor the Russian people, the petition says.

Belarus will pay several billion dollars for the nuclear plant in addition to the projected $6 billion to $10 billion because of the conditions that are offered by Russia, the petitioners warn.

"Such a significant increase in state debt, especially amid the ongoing economic crisis, would be absolutely unjustified and put the country's future in danger," the petition says.

It would be immoral of Russia to take advantage of Belarus' temporary economic difficulties to sell its dangerous and economically unviable technologies, says Aleksandr Nikitin, chairman of the board of a St. Petersburg-based environmental rights organization called Bellona.

The reputation of Russia's Nuclear Energy State Corporation (Rosatom) has been sullied by a number of scandals, the petition says. The collapse of a containment structure at a would-be nuclear power plant near St. Petersburg confirms that Rosatom has serious systemic problems and cannot guarantee the quality of its work, the petition says.

Belarus' nuclear power plant, which is to have a generating capacity of around 2,400 megawatts, is to be built in the Hrodna region near the Lithuanian border. The first unit of the plant is scheduled to be put into operation in 2017 and the other one in 2018.

Atomstroiexport, a subsidiary company of Rosatom, has been selected by the Belarusian government to be the prime contractor. Russia is expected to provide a loan of more than $7 billion to finance the construction work. //BelaPAN