Azerbaijan's "green" agenda amid global nuclearisation and risk of Armenia's "ticking time bomb" Expert Andrey Ozharovsky's conversation with Caliber.Az

Сaliber.Az talked to Russian engineer-physicist, and expert of the programme "Safety of Radioactive Waste" Andrey Ozharovsky about the global nuclear race, the role of the Armenian NPP Metzamor and Baku's balanced green policy.

- While the West is offering Yerevan more and more active assistance and cooperation in various fields, including nuclear energy, Armenia is in the process of severing its established ties with Russia. And these points are a cause for concern. For example, the United States has offered Armenia to completely replace the Russian nuclear fuel for the Metsamor nuclear power plant and to provide it with its nuclear fuel. However, it has been argued that it would be inappropriate for NPPs in the post-Soviet space, including the Armenian NPPs. Could replacing Russian fuel with American fuel cause the reactors to fail, threatening the entire South Caucasus region?

- In fact, the refusal of Russian energy sources, be it gas, oil or uranium fuel, became a certain trend in world economics, and it was quite logical that the US offered Armenia to substitute nuclear imports. But let me add that while the replacement of VVER1000s with US nuclear fuel is a fast-track process, the replacement of pre-flood VVER440s, of which the Armenian reactor is one, with US nuclear fuel, is impossible in the short term.

- Why not?

- Because there is a shortage of fuel for reactors of this class. And nuclear fuel, let me remind you, is not just enriched uranium itself, but also additional components, such as fuel elements. Moreover, uranium fuel is produced in many countries, but all the components are produced only by the technology giants, the direct producers of nuclear technology. Such fuel is slightly different from Soviet technology in the design of these additional components, so the US is now working with France to develop some kind of similar fuel. In the future, when the exchange takes place according to this scenario, no technical threats to the Armenian reactor are expected, and everything should work properly.

In the past, this did not happen because Russia was adept at dumping such processes, selling its fuel at quite low prices and various countries were happy to buy it. But now, unfortunately, the situation has changed; Russia's Rosatom has already been sanctioned in Britain, and this will soon happen in the rest of Europe.

The claim that American fuel is categorically unsuitable for Soviet reactors is a myth. The irony is that it was Rosatom that once successfully produced and sold fuel for Western-type reactors, for example for nuclear power plants in Sweden or Switzerland, and there were no technical problems.

- Last year the US also actively proposed to Armenia to develop a network of small nuclear power plants, and on June 1 the Armenian government approved a draft of a new agreement with the US on cooperation in nuclear energy. How do you assess the prospect of Armenia's nuclear reformatisation, how realistic is it and are there no risks for other regional countries?

- Realism of plans to build new reactors with the help of the US or Russia is more a question of money. If a manufacturer invests in such a project, I think Armenia will gladly accept it. But I don't see Armenia's ability to invest in such an expensive project as a nuclear power plant, Yerevan simply doesn't have the resources.

Then again, the share of the nuclear industry in the world's energy production has been declining over the years, and new nuclear power plants are rarely built. And this is where Armenia should think twice. Nuclear plants are expensive, take a long time to build, decades, and during that time invested funds are frozen. But, believe me, the ultimate goal of providing electricity to the population and industry would be achieved much faster if this money were used to build wind or solar power plants or other renewable energy facilities. I have the impression that the talk about Armenia's need for nuclear power is the invention of nuclear power producers themselves.

Armenia must choose between developing solar and wind power or accepting handouts from one nuclear country or the other, whether Russia or the US.

- A few weeks ago, the US said it should prepare for a simultaneous war with China and Russia, so Washington announced a change in its nuclear security strategy. Such a policy was called for by the 2022 Strategic Posture Commission set up by the US Congress. In essence, this suggests that the US is about to embark on a nuclear arms race, with Russia and China ready to follow suit. How likely is this turn of events and nuclear conflict shortly?

- Yes, unfortunately, I see trends that the world is returning to a nuclear arms race. This is driven both by the obsolescence of existing nuclear weapons and the need to modernise them for purely physical reasons. On the other hand, there are more and more confrontations in the world that could lead to conflicts involving the use of nuclear weapons. Countries are gradually abandoning arms reduction treaties and may resume nuclear testing. This is also extremely risky for the environment. We do not yet know who will be the first to start a deep modernisation of the nuclear weapons system, but everything is moving in that direction, and that is of course very sad because such a race will consume huge resources which, in my opinion, could be used to improve human welfare and the environment, rather than to create instruments of murder.

Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass extermination, and the modernisation of such weapons demonstrates the willingness of any state to destroy human beings, including civilian populations, throughout the world. And if nuclear weapons are added to the sites of existing military conflicts, the loss of human life will increase a hundredfold, not to mention the radioactive contamination of the environment. And the world is now on the brink of such a threat.

- As a nuclear physicist and ecologist, are you in favour of closing down the Metsamor NPP as soon as possible, given the dangers it poses to the ecology of the Caucasus?

- As I see it, Armenia is now facing a fork in the road - to remain a country with dangerous, dirty nuclear energy, or to try to develop renewable energy, following the example of many countries in the world, including neighbouring Azerbaijan. This is a specific approach that requires a well-considered decision: for example, solar and wind energy may be most suitable for Armenia, with its mountainous landscape. There is already a small amount of wind energy in Armenia, but it could be expanded. By the way, I would like to remind you that recently at the COP28 conference, many countries decided to triple the capacity of solar energy by 2030, and I think that Armenia's choice should still be in favour of renewable energy. This will significantly reduce the threat to the region, because the Metsamor nuclear power plant is a high-altitude plant in an earthquake-prone area, and the threat of nuclear contamination is extremely high. Essentially, it is an old Soviet design from the 1960s, which lacks the so-called "melt trap" of the radioactive zone, and lacks a protective shell, in other words, important elements of generally accepted modern safety technology for plants of this type. All this increases the possible consequences of an accident, which cannot be ruled out there, precisely because the technology is not even pre-Fokushima, but rather a daughter of Chornobyl, despite all attempts to modernise it.

Armenia may indeed fall under the influence of pro-nuclear countries such as Ukraine and others. I should note, however, that for some reason there is no boom in the construction of nuclear reactors in the USA. These are technologies that Americans use exclusively for export to other countries, so Yerevan should carefully weigh up the pros and cons once again. In Azerbaijan, which has long been committed to the non-alternative of green energy, the latest RES technologies are being actively introduced, and I can only welcome Baku's initiatives.