The Metsamor Nuclear Plant, quoted by the European Union as “a danger to the entire region” in 2004 (https://azvision.az/redirect.php?url=http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2004/jun/02/energy.europeanunion) but continuing operations to this day, is one of the most ill-equipped sites of its kind in the world: one in which a disaster is generally seen not as a matter of if, but when.
Contributing 40% of the country’s electricity, this Soviet-era plant nonetheless lacks a containment building: a reinforced steel and concrete structure that encloses the nuclear reactor. In addition to this, the site is situated on hugely volatile and earthquake-prone terrain.
While the area, after having its borders closed with Turkey and Azerbaijan after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, is in dire need for energy, the continued running of Metsamor offers a ticking time-bomb for the area, its workers and its citizens on the whole. Despite this, public opinion on the matter is shaped by the power shortages of 1988 to 1993, in which the area reeled from an earthquake that saw the plant shut for safety reasons. The reopening was a popular move in an area under significant strain from the burgeoning nationalist conflicts.
With calls from both the EU and US to shut down Metsamor, the plant continues to run, despite government plans to replace the plant after this year, and the public remains on the side of the government in this regard. However, in the terrible wake of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi disaster, in which a tsunami and earthquake wrought terrible consequences upon the site, the Metsamor plant stands at a dangerous crossroads: shutdown and rebuild safely and immediately, or risk everything and everyone that it provides for.
Mr Kamran Balayev, a reputable member of Azeri diaspora, said that : “The world must take note of the dangerous games being played by Armenian officials with the nuclear issue.”
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