Ukraine’s motives for buying Westinghouse’s fuel assemblies are political

Ukraine’s motives for buying Westinghouse’s fuel assemblies for its three nuclear reactors are mostly political, Sergey Kondratyev, Head of the Real Sector Group, Department of Economics, Institute for Energy and Finance (Russia), told media, BelTA informs.

“Yuschenko also signed a similar contract and it was also just a reaction to Ukraine’s political conflicts with Russia. The experience of use of Westinghouse’s fuel at Soviet-type reactors is mostly negative. After a number of incidents, the Czechs decided to no longer use the fuel at their nuclear reactors. Similar incidents were registered in Ukraine in 2012 and they were also followed by a decision to transit to Rosatom’s fuel. The current decision to use American fuel comes from political motives and the wish to be more energy independent. It is a question how the American fuel will act in Ukraine, nor it is clear how Energoatom will pay for it. Recently it was forced to borrow a loan at 19% p.a., which is too much for a state-owned company. So, it is not yet clear how the contract will be financed or if it will be signed at all. Yuri Prodan has made lots of interesting statements concerning nuclear and gas of late but few of them have been realized so far”, expert underlined.

“I’m not a specialist on nuclear energy and cannot say for sure that the use of American fuel contains any risks for radiation safety but in terms of technology, it does. After the incident at South Ukraine NPP, they were forced to restore the unit and they lost a lot of money as a result. So, there are certain risks, but I would not say that the use of Westinghouse’s fuel may lead to a new Chernobyl. Ukraine has enough professionals for preventing this. In any case, only Prodan can answer the question why exactly now. And his only answer may be – to please the Americans at the expense of economics and professionalism”, he added.