OIL, GAS AND NOW POTENTIALLY 3 NEW

NUCLEAR PLANTS IN THE BALTIC AREA:

Ticking time bombs?

Text: Aage Myhre, Editor-in-Chief
aage.myhre@VilNews.com

It surprises me that the warning bells are not ringing much louder in Scandinavia and the rest of northern Europe, as I presume it now must be well known what is going on here in the Baltic region with regards to old as well as new energy installations, and potential disasters connected to them.

Oil, gas and polluting elements from World War II and later have long been known concern factors. Now the situation has become further worrying by the fact that Russia has built an underwater gas pipeline from St. Petersburg to Germany, and not least that it is planned no less than three (!) new nuclear power stations very close to the Baltic Sea's southern shore.

We all remember Chernobyl 25 years ago. We all remember the terrible disasters in Japan earlier this year, in a nation that claimed to have the world’s safest nuclear installations – a claim that showed yet again that nuclear plants will never be safe enough. They are always ticking time bombs.

For the whole time nuclear plants operate they emit radiation to their surroundings, often causing illness and genetic damage to humans, animals and nature. No nuclear installation, wherever it was, has ever been really safe.

I can hardly imagine living in Vilnius any more if that means I will have to live surrounded by three nuclear plants, just kilometres away. In particular, I would be extremely worried about my children and their descendants. Living in a neighbourhood of nuclear reactors is simply not a chance I can take.

Can Europe accept that three nuclear power stations are built right here, at its very ‘epicentre’?

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