BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

11/10/2007

Belarus to build nuclear power plant - Lukashenko

MINSK, October 11 (Itar-Tass) - The construction of a nuclear power plant in Belarus will begin in 2008, President Alexander Lukashenko said on Thursday.

He said the decision to build the nuclear power plant in Belarus "is dictated not by some political ambitions, but by the necessity to ensure the country's energy security in the conditions of depletion of gas and oil resources, hitches in supplies and the increase of prices of energy carriers".

However, Belarus will not abandon plans to use alternative energy sources.

"By no means should we refuse to build energy facilities on our own sources - wood, brown coal, shale, and to use the energy of rivers and wind," Lukashenko said.

"We shall develop areas like the use of replenished energy sources. What there will be if a situation suddenly occurs where we have to provide our population so that the Ilyich lamp is on in houses," Lukashenko said, referring to the project of Soviet state founder Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's nationwide electricity supply project.

At the same time, Belarus needs its nuclear power station, Lukashenko added.

"We do not change our stance on the nuclear power plant. It is necessary, and we shall build it."

Lukashenko stressed that the choice of construction site shouldnot be slow.

He did not elaborate on who will build the plant.

Source:

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=11956944&PageNum=0

Google