At Visaginas, 1,500 workers are taking apart the Ignalina nuclear plant, whose two Soviet-built RBMK-1500 reactors once supplied about 70% of Lithuania’s electricity. The city was built for the 5,000 people who constructed and ran them. Unit 1 started up in 1983, Unit 2 in 1987; a third and fourth reactor were abandoned after Chernobyl.
The reactors were not worn out. Their closure—Unit 1 in 2004, Unit 2 in 2009—was a condition of Lithuania’s accession to the European Union, and Brussels has funded the bulk of the dismantling since, Euractiv reports, with completion not expected until 2050. Lithuania went from exporting electricity to importing it, and a replacement plant at Visaginas, approved by the government, was narrowly rejected in a 2012 referendum and never built.
Two decades of skilled labor, and billions of euros, devoted to carefully converting a working power plant into a green field.
