A Baltic Brawl over Nuclear Reactors

In the dense pine forests where the European Union’s eastern border meets Belarus, two giant nuclear reactors sit idle. Lithuania’s 3,000-megawatt Ignalina plant was once one of the most powerful nuclear facilities in the world. The Baltic state has shut down both reactors as a condition for its 2004 entry into the EU, which wants nothing to do with Ignalina’s Chernobyl-style technology. Now the EU debt crisis has forced Brussels to slash its budget for dismantling old Eastern European atomic stations, threatening to leave Ignalina in limbo.

When a reactor is decommissioned, the first task is to shut it down, a job that requires a lot more than simply flipping a switch. The next step in dismantling the power plant: Spent fuel is removed and the reactors, turbines, and generators are taken apart, a complex task. Ignalina’s turbine hall alone contains 190 kilometers of pipes. The EU, which sets budgets on a seven-year cycle, originally earmarked €1.4 billion ($1.8 billion) for decommissioning Ignalina and an additional €1.5 billion for similar projects in Slovakia and Bulgaria: Both sums are expected to be spent through 2013.