Weather blacks out Ukrainian nuclear power stations

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

Weather blacks out Ukrainian nuclear power stations

KIEV, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Power lines downed by bad weather forced two 
more Ukrainian nuclear power reactors to shut down automatically on 
Tuesday, leaving millions without electricity and authorities warning 
of worse to come. 

Ukraine relies on nuclear power for 50 percent of its electricity. 
Only six out of 14 nuclear reactors were operational on Tuesday, a 
day after line fault tripped the last reactor at Chernobyl, site of 
the world's worst civil atomic disaster, off the grid, possibly 
forever. 

Energy, or more often a lack of it, is Ukraine's hottest political 
potato, but the latest mass power cuts have struck at a time when 
foreign lenders have praised the country for progress in reforming 
the sector, renowned for creaking infrastructure and murky financial 
goings-on. 

"All shutdowns were linked to weather conditions," said Olexander 
Maistrenko, spokesman for the atomic energy agency Enerhoatom. He 
said there was no increase in radiation levels at any affected 
station. 

Nuclear reactors cannot quickly adjust to changes in demand from the 
national grid and are designed to shut themselves down if there is 
nowhere for them to feed electricity. 

The government moved to calm fears of a complete collapse of the 
system. 

"The energy system won't collapse (due to spikes in demand), because 
whole regions are cut off due to the weather," said a spokeswoman for 
Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko. 

Maistrenko said reactor one of three at the South Ukraine nuclear 
power plant shut down at 7:41 a.m. (0541 GMT) followed at 7:52 a.m. 
(0552 GMT) by number three. The station is now completely shut down 
after its number two reactor was put out of action on Monday by a 
leak from a steam generator. 

Late on Monday, number six reactor at the southern Zaporizhska 
nuclear power station switched off because of bad weather, Maistrenko 
said. Of the station's six reactors, two were already out of action 
for repairs, he said. 

RAIN, SNOW, ICE GRIP COUNTRY 

Driving rain, snow, ice and heavy winds have swept across Ukraine 
since the weekend. In some regions, schools and businesses have 
closed and many roads are completely iced over. 

According to the Emergencies Ministry, power was severed to half of 
all homes in two western regions and areas across the country were 
suffering blackouts. A spokeswoman said they expected further cuts as 
weather deteriorated. 

Andriy Dmytrenko, an energy sector analyst at brokerage Dragon 
Capital in Kiev, said he thought traditional power stations would be 
able to take up the generating slack until the nuclear reactors were 
working again. 

"Higher thermal plant production was already expected because of the 
(scheduled) Chernobyl shutdown and the generating companies have been 
stockpiling coal," he said. 

The automatic shutdown of the last functioning reactor at Chernobyl 
on Monday, three weeks before it was due to be taken out of service 
for good, served as a reminder of the decrepit state of Ukraine's 
infrastructure. 

Chernobyl's number four reactor exploded in April 1986, immediately 
killing at least 30 people, and sending a radioactive cloud over 
Europe. Thousands are thought to have died since from the exposure to 
radiation. 

But Ukraine, saddled by gas debts of at least $1.4 billion to Russia, 
says it can ill afford to forgo nuclear power. 

Western donors, to the chagrin of environmentalists, have pledged 
cash to build replacement reactors elsewhere once Chernobyl is 
permanently taken out of service on December 15. 

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