Belarus Forges Ahead With Nuclear Power Program

Belarus has announced that it is seeking foreign tenders to construct two nuclear power plants within the next decade in a contract worth $9 billion.

Belarusian Ambassador-Designate to South Korea Natallia I. Zhylevich told journalists, "These reactors will give us 25 percent of what we need by the time they are completed. Twenty-five percent is good but it's not enough, plus we are right in the center of Europe, all the countries around us need electricity. Today, people understand that without nuclear power plants we will not be able to develop. We are a developing economy and we need energy and we don't need pollution or gas or oil, we need something that is cleaner," Seoul’s The Korea Herald reported.

Convincing the Belrusian public that the country’s future lies in nuclear power may take some effort on the part of the government however, as severe fallout from the April 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in neighboring Ukraine blanketed the country. According to official post-Soviet data, about 60 percent of Chernobyl’s fallout landed in Belarus and in the past 25 years Belarus has spent $32 billion in coping with the resultant radioactivity and is set to spend more in the future.

By. Charles Kennedy, Deputy Editor OilPrice.com