Chernobyl Up From the Grave

There is no more frightening symbol of nuclear plant disaster than Chernobyl, where a reactor breakdown spewed radioactive fallout across Europe in 1986. Why, then, did Ukraine reopen, after a five-month hiatus, the only working reactor at the Chernobyl complex? The answer is at least partly to scare the West, especially Europe, into helping finance its electrical energy needs.

Such help was vaguely promised in 1995 in exchange for decommissioning Chernobyl within five years, but much of the aid was never delivered. Desperately poor and growing poorer, Ukraine--whose president, Leonid D. Kuchma, is visiting the United States this week--will need help to get by without the unsafe reactor. But Kiev must accept strict controls on the Western money and agree to diversify power generation away from nuclear.

It is not entirely clear that Ukraine needs Chernobyl right now, because domestic demand is depressed by years of economic decline. The government often warns at this time of the year that people will be freezing for lack of energy, only to end up exporting electricity. Clearly, however, the energy sector is a mess. Most people and businesses barter for energy or don’t pay at all, which creates a drag on the economy.

The specter of another nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl makes Europe very nervous. The European Union in 1995 pledged $3 billion for decommissioning Chernobyl. But since then, the EU and Ukraine have argued over what the aid package should actually contain. It seems reasonable that the EU and its partners should just buy Chernobyl and bury it.

Ukraine--under close financial supervision to control its rampant corruption--should use the proceeds to finish two partly built modern nuclear power stations. With what’s left, Kiev should finance wider use of natural gas and indigenous coal, in modern nonpolluting plants, for power generation.