By Renfrey Clarke
MOSCOW — To believe its founding charter, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is committed to pursuing "environmentally sound and sustainable development" as it helps fund the transition to market economies in the former eastern bloc. But in the view of Vladimir Slivyak, an anti-nuclear spokesperson for Russia's main eco-defence network, the Social-Ecological Union, this "commitment" is so much window-dressing.
In alliance with the western European nuclear power industry, Slivyak told Green Left Weekly on March 29, the EBRD is consciously promoting the expansion of nuclear generating capacity in eastern Europe.
How else, Slivyak asked, can one explain the EBRD's extraordinarily generous and persistent support for completing the Mochovce nuclear power plant in Slovakia? Why the bank's focus on upgrading safety provisions in Soviet-built nuclear power plants in eastern Europe, when there is evidence that the plants would still pose unacceptable hazards, and that other strategies could satisfy energy needs at lesser cost?
On March 28, Slivyak sent an open letter to EBRD president Jacques de Larosiere, calling on the EBRD directors to "adopt an explicit policy precluding the bank from financing the completion, upgrading or construction of nuclear power plants".
The EBRD's readiness to fund nuclear power development in eastern Europe has been a matter of public record for more than three years. "The EBRD is conducting a ... study to assess costs of nuclear power generation with alternative scenarios for safety upgrades, for completion of nuclear plants in an advanced stage of construction, and for new nuclear plants", a World Bank document observed in 1993. "... The [EBRD] is ... prepared to assist with nuclear projects, using its own funding resources, when this would lead to an overall improvement in nuclear safety through closure of 'high risk' reactors", the EBRD itself stated in its 1993 annual report.
As depicted in such statements, the EBRD's willingness to finance nuclear projects is strictly a matter of embracing "lesser evils". But is the bank's real thinking so scrupulous? The approach the EBRD has taken to the building of the Mochovce nuclear plant suggests not.
In the late 1980s, the plans for the Mochovce plant, to be equipped with Soviet reactors, aroused intense concern in nearby Austria. Construction was halted in 1989, but was later renewed with western funding, including credits from the EBRD.
A major campaign by environmentalists succeeded in having western funding for Mochovce halted last year, though Russian support has continued. The EBRD's proposed assistance for completing the plant was put at 704.5 million ECUs — far larger than all the bank's other power-sector investments, estimated at 473 million ECUs.
If funding on this scale had gone ahead, the Mochovce plant would largely have monopolised the EBRD's support for energy industry projects. Safer and more cost-efficient alternatives would have been squeezed out.
The EBRD's close links with the western European nuclear corporations have been reflected in the bank's vigorous promotion of safety upgrading efforts in nuclear power plants throughout the former Soviet bloc. Design and manufacturing work for this upgrading will provide much-needed revenues for the western firms.
Even more important, contracts in this field promise to give the western nuclear industry a point of entry to the coveted Russian market for new nuclear power plants and equipment. Slivyak explained to GLW that the EBRD is now funding a program to upgrade safety provisions in Russian nuclear plants at Sosnovy Bor near St Petersburg, at Novovoronezh in central European Russia and on the Kola Peninsula in the far north.
The Kola nuclear plant was recently cited by officials of the US Department of Energy as among the most accident-prone in the world, with one of the worst records of unplanned shutdowns. In order to have its safety upgraded, such a plant would need to be rebuilt from scratch. And even at the end of the process, very substantial dangers would remain.
The readiness of the EBRD to accept that nuclear power plants in eastern Europe should be upgraded rather than replaced by other energy sources is curious, considering trends in the European energy market. Natural gas is now flowing into Europe in huge quantities from Russia, from Algeria and from the continental shelf. Gas industry executives speak of the likelihood of oversupply and falling prices.
According to Slivyak, the best options for dispensing with nuclear power while meeting eastern Europe's energy needs lie in using energy more wisely. "The most effective investments in the context of eastern Europe", he argues in his open letter, "are low-cost, easy-to-carry-out energy efficiency improvements, demand side management projects, and a wide range of renewable energy sources that are available in the region".
The EBRD has recently set up an Energy Efficiency Department, which is investigating ways of economising on energy use in eastern Europe. But there is no sign that this heralds a basic shift in the bank's attitudes.
The EBRD was set up with a specific brief to spread capitalism. There are few western corporations with more reason than the nuclear firms to view eastern Europe as a vital area of expansion. Should anyone therefore be surprised that the bank is heeding the appeals of these firms for help in moving into new spheres of investment and control?