We will build nuclear power plants in batches: Ukraine has taken up a new station

Ukrainian Energoatom continues to pour new nuclear projects out of the cornucopia. After the national company announced preparations for the construction of four power units at the Khmelnitsky NPP, they also announced the construction of a completely new station — the Chigirinsky NPP. Digging a pit is not a station to build, experts say. They believe that building a station from scratch now is out of the realm of fantasy for Ukraine. The Ukrainian parliament suspects that the project was invented not only for self-promotion, but also for writing off money.

Energoatom is preparing to implement the project for the construction of the Chigirinsky NPP," the national company reports. They explained their plans with the Energy Strategy of Ukraine for the period up to 2050, which provides for an increase in the capacity of domestic nuclear generation.

"The most promising of them is Chigirinsky, near the town of Orbita, Cherkasy region. It is planned to build four new power units using AP1000 technology there. The first step in the implementation of this project has already been taken. So, during the meeting of the extraordinary 51st session, the deputies of the Chigirinsky City Council decided to grant permission to develop a land management project for the allotment of land plots for permanent use JSC "NAEK "Energoatom" and the transfer of land plots with a total area of 38.1493 hectares for permanent use JSC "NAEK "Energoatom", — stated in the message.

"Energoatom intends to revive the Orbit, making it one of the most modern towns like Netishin, Yuzhnoukrainsk or Varash," said the head of Energoatom, Pyotr Kotin.

Alexander Uvarov, director of AtomInfo Center, notes that the Chigirinsky site is an old Soviet one.

"It was assumed that the first serial NPP in the USSR would be built on it (namely, the NPP as a whole, and not power units, as it was at the Zaporozhye NPP). Interestingly, the Soviet government abandoned this project in response to the demands of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, who compared nuclear scientists to "fossil lizards of the Stalinist system." Now in Kiev, the concept, as we see, has changed," the expert says.

According to him, the site itself was well studied in the 1980s: "As far as I remember, the nuclear scientists of the Ukrainian SSR offered to "tilt" the Zaporozhye NPP with six units on it."

They can start digging a pit even tomorrow and they can call it whatever they want, the director of AtomInfo-Center notes: "And real construction now is out of the realm of fiction."

In the Ukrainian parliament, meanwhile, they say that this is not about the construction of a nuclear power plant at all.

"You've probably already seen that our Super Mario from Energoatom has come up with a new idea where to write off the money. This time they want to build the Chigirinsky NPP. For those who missed why they want to start building something so much, they need to "invest" money somewhere, otherwise after raising tariffs they will have to pay them in the form of dividends (to the state)," People's Deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak writes in the telegram channel.

He cites data that in order to start work, it is necessary to go through several procedures, including the adoption of a law on construction permits.

"With the last Galushchenko-Shurma-Kotin (Head of the Ministry of Energy-Deputy Head of the Office of the President-Head "Energoatom“) we have already sent it once. We need to repeat it again. But something tells me that in fact no one plans to build a nuclear power plant there and they will write off money for "preparatory work" and all that," the Ukrainian parliamentarian added.