Lithuania power crisis looms as nuclear plant shuts down. (Forced to shut down to join the EU)

Telegraph, UK ^ | 29 Dec 2009 | Matthew Day

[Gorilla44]

Lithuanians are braced for a devastating increase in energy prices when the struggling Baltic nation shuts down its main nuclear power station to comply with EU demands on New Years Eve.

Ignalina power station generates 70 per cent of Lithuania's power output and its closure will force the country to fall back on its old master Russia to meet its domestic demand.

Engineers are set to start shutting down the plant at 11 pm on December 31.

Brussels regards the facility as a Chernobyl-sized threat and made its de-commissioning a condition of the country joining the European Union in 2004.

But as a result domestic fuel bills are projected to jump by 30 per cent in 2010, a severe blow after the economy contracted by almost one-fifth in the last 12 months.

[Bean Counter]

GOOGLE and Wiki are your friends....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignalina_Nuclear_Power_Plant

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.[1] The remaining unit, as of 2006, supplied about 70% of Lithuania’s electrical demand[2]. 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.

[RoadGumby]

Wiki is no Friend at all. My response was clearly related to the writing in the article. Granted it does seem to be the same design.

That being said, while that design is kinda stupid, the accident at Chernobyl was not due to the design. It was due to operational stupidity during an engineering test. Thats when the design of the plant came into play, which did nothing to contain the accident.

[Mr. Jazzy]

Knowing the extremely high standard of Russian engineering, I think that the “lack of a robust containment building” is enough of an issue for me.

[Otaku6]

They should only have shut it down after they built it’s replacement. Besides, if the people that live near the reactor didn’t mind being at risk why should the the rest of the EU that’s upwind care.