The project to build the third and fourth units of the Khmelnytskyi NPP cannot be called new. It was conceived back in the days of Leonid Brezhnev, in 1971, as part of the Soviet plans to build a station with four nuclear units of 1 GW each. Implementation of the Khmelnytskyi NPP 3 and 4 project in the city of Netishyn began in 1986–1987 and was suspended in 1990, due to the moratorium caused by the Chornobyl NPP accident in 1986. Khmelnytskyi NPP unit 1 was put into operation in 1987, unit 2 – in 2004.
A bit less than 25 years later, the Khmelnytskyi NPP 3 and 4 project was decided to be resumed. This happened almost immediately after V. Yanukovych was elected president, at a meeting of the prime ministers of Ukraine and Russia on April 30, 2010. After the victory of the Revolution of Dignity, the project was suspended, but its revival is again on the agenda, this time – on the basis of Russian reactors built many years ago for the Bulgarian Belene NPP.
A decision to implement or not to implement the KhNPP-3,4 project requires answers to the following questions:
- Does Ukraine need a dubious project of the Russian design during a full-scale war with Russia?
- Is it possible to obtain a full set of design documentation and to start construction without permission from the main design organization, which belongs to the Russian state?
- Is it possible to build new VVER-1000/B-466 units without purchasing certain equipment from Russia?
- How reliable are the structures built for reactors that are already over 30 years old, and are there any official positive conclusions about their safety?
- Is it possible to combine the existing facilities that were built for the B-320 series reactor with the B-466 series reactor that may be purchased from Bulgaria?
- Are there witness samples of the reactor manufacturing plant, which is obligatory for starting construction for safety reasons?
- Shall we find creditors for this project under the so-called feasibility study, or will it have to be financed from the state budget? How will Ukraine's donors, who cover its huge budget deficit, react to this?
- Maybe it’s better to use the money earmarked for the Russian nuclear project to build decentralized generation capacities, four times bigger and three times faster?
As we know, not only Bulgaria but also Iran and India rejected Russian nuclear junk, where they tried to resell reactors from the Belene NPP. Finland, despite huge losses, also gave up a project of building a nuclear power plant based on the Russian VVER-1200 design (Hanhikivi 1) right after the start of the full-scale Russian aggression against Ukraine, timely realizing that safety and reliability matter more than money.
I am personally a supporter of the nuclear scenario for the development of the Ukrainian energy sector until 2050, plus renewable energy sources, plus balancing gas power plants and energy storage. I am sure that Ukraine may choose the best reactor, not the cheapest Russian junk. The project should be chosen at an open competition involving leading world companies, where there is no place for Russian scrap metal. I am convinced that the choice should be made among Westinghouse, AREVA (France), KEPCO (South Korea), AECL (Canada), Toshiba (Japan) and others. I believe that projects of construction of small modular SMR reactors also look promising for Ukraine.
https://razumkov.org.ua/komentari/deiaki-pytannia-proektu-dobudovy-khaes-3-4
