Ukraine restarts Chernobyl after minor malfunction

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Ukraine restarts Chernobyl after minor malfunction

KIEV, Feb 28 (Reuters) - Ukraine's troubled Chernobyl nuclear power 
station restarted its only working reactor on Monday after fixing a 
minor malfunction which forced the plant to close it down last week, 
officials said. 

``The power station has already been turned on and it is increasing 
capacity,'' a spokeswoman for state nuclear power company Energoatom 
told Reuters. 

A Chernobyl duty officer said the reactor, which last week was shut 
down for the third time this month after an error occurred in the 
pipeline system, was already working at 20 percent of its capacity 
and would be plugged into the country's energy system later in the 
day. 

Reactor number three is Chernobyl's last operating unit. Its number 
four reactor exploded in April 1986 in the world's worst civil 
nuclear accident, spewing a cloud of radioactive dust over Ukraine, 
Belarus, Russia and parts of western Europe. 

Another reactor was halted in 1997 after it exhausted its safe 
lifespan, and the fourth reactor has not been rehabilitated since a 
fire in 1991. 

Ukraine has promised the West it will close Chernobyl in 2000 in 
return for its help in completing nuclear reactors at two different 
power plants in other parts of the country, but no date has been set 
yet

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