Ukrainian Prime Minister, Nikolay Azarov, considers not economically viable to continue to invest in “green” or renewable energy due to high costs of alternative energy sources, particularly renewable sources of electric power.
Ukraine’s Prime Minister suggested during a cabinet meeting dedicated to energy security that green renewable energy production may be sustained in the developed countries such as Germany while Ukraine has no alternative sources of power supply that could replace nuclear and thermal power generation sources.
The cost of production of solar energy in particular is 4 UAH per one kW h while the cost of production of nuclear power is about 50 times less expensive according to Mr Azarov. A country like Ukraine cannot afford the same type of renewable energy transformation at the moment when economic crisis is still an issue.
The position of Mr Azarov directly contradicts to the efforts by President Yanukovich to promote the solar business of the Kluev brothers which was profoundly investigated by the Ukrainian online media Pravda.com.ua
The Activ Solar private solar energy project has received over 200 million support from the Ukraine’s tax payers’ amid the economic crisis. The alternative energy project in Ukraine brings up to 500 million per year to the private shareholders from the pockets of the Ukrainian taxpayers based on the Green Tariff according to the journalists investigation by Znak Oklyku.
Thermal power production is another pillar of the Ukraine’s energy sector according to the Prime Minister Azarov. Based on cheaper coal burning, thermal electric stations of Ukraine continue to be highly competitive compared to natural gas based thermal energy producers.
What Mr Azarov is not calculating in is the prolonged maintenance of the nuclear power reactors after they will have their power resources used up. Post-production maintenance of nuclear power reactors might last up to 500 year (!!!) or longer. Five hundred years of maintenance costs without any power generation is a huge waste and a tremendous liability for the multiple generations.
As for the ecological impact of the “cheap” nuclear power production, Ukraine’s Prime Minister seems to be totally unaware of the very concept of ecological safety even after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Only economic losses of Ukraine caused by the Chernobyl nuclear power plant catastrophe now increase 200 billion dollars.
Ukraine’s current leaders seem to fail to look and see beyond their own direct material interests when discussing long-term sustainability issues which impact not only their private yards but the entire World. The Prime Minister’s notion of the cheaper energy sources is absolutely outdated and have not been even adjusted to consider the costs of the Chernobyl disaster when nuclear power cost of production is voiced. The rest of the World should take Mr Azarov’s position more seriously in order to prevent the possible new ecological disasters that he doesn’t seem to even notice.
What Ukraine cannot afford indeed is the type of leadership that does not learn to count the value of human lives & health, as well as the value of the ecological safety of the planet Earth.
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