Nuclear power in Ukraine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In 2007, nuclear power supplied 47.5% of Ukraine's electricity production of 195 billion kWh. The total installed capacity of nuclear reactors in Ukraine is over 13 GWe.[1]

Ukraine is one of Europe’s largest energy consumers, it consumes almost double the energy of Germany, per unit of GDP.[2] A great share of energy supply in Ukraine comes from nuclear power, with the country receiving most of its nuclear fuel from Russia. Oil and natural gas provide the remainder of the country's energy; these are also imported from the former Soviet Union. Ukraine is heavily dependent on its nuclear energy. The largest nuclear power plant in Europe, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, is located in Ukraine. In 2006, the government planned to build 11 new reactors by the year 2030, in effect, almost doubling the current amount of nuclear power capacity.[3] Ukraine's power sector is the twelfth-largest in the world in terms of installed capacity, with 54 gigawatts (GW).[2]Renewable energy still plays a very modest role in electrical output; in 2005 energy production was met by the following sources: nuclear (47 percent), thermal (45 percent), hydroelectric and other (8 percent).[3]

The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. An explosion and fire released large quantities of radioactive contamination into the atmosphere, which spread over much of Western USSR and Europe. It is considered the worst nuclear power plant accident in history, and is one of only two classified as a level 7 event on the International Nuclear Event Scale (the other being the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster).[4] The battle to contain the contamination and avert a greater catastrophe ultimately involved over 500,000 workers and cost an estimated 18 billion rubles, crippling the Soviet economy.[5]

Reactors[edit]

All of Ukraine's RBMK reactors (the type involved in the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster) were located at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. All of the reactors there have been shut down, leaving only the much safer VVER reactors operating in the country. Three of the reactors listed were built in post-independence Ukraine, with the first one of these being constructed in 1995; the other sixteen reactors the country inherited from the Soviet Union.

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External links[edit]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Ukraine