Chernobyl's exclusion zone to be revived with solar 
 
 The Ukrainian government has announced plans to use Chernobyl's nuclear wasteland for solar energy generation. Meanwhile in Belarus, a 22.3 MW PV plant is already under construction in Brahin district, around 20 miles from Chernobyl. 
 
 Flickr/thisisbossi One time European PV power plant leader, Ukraine is turning back to solar in unlikely places. 
 
 30 years after the Chernobyl accident, the Ukrainian government aims to give a new renewable life to thousands hectares of the exclusion zone in the northern part of the country. While long-lasting radiation makes the area unfit for human habitation, agriculture or forestry, its cheap land and remaining electric transmission facilities can be used for solar power generation. 
 
 “Land and transmission line connection are the most expensive parts of any solar project, and we have both of them here,” general director of the Chernobyl plant Igor Gramotkin told local news outlets in April, when the country was commemorating the 30th anniversary of the nuclear disaster. 
 
 At the end of June, Ukraine's minister of the environment and natural resources Ostap Semerak presented country's plans for the revival of the exclusion zone at Canada-Ukraine Business Forum in Toronto. After the forum, he announced that a number of Canadian investors are looking at developing solar and biofuel power plants near Chernobyl. 
 
 Semerak also noted that the implementation of such projects requires new legislation in terms of allocation of land in the exclusion zone. “We expect that this issue will be fully settled by the end of the current session of Parliament. In early June, the corresponding bill already passed a first reading,” the minister said. 
 
 In a recent interview Semerak has confirmed that the ministry of environmental and natural resources was already negotiating with two U.S. investment firms and four Canadian energy companies interested in the Chernobyl's solar potential. Ukrainian developers plan to install a 4 MW project at the site by the end of the year, Bloomberg reports. 
 
 According to the ministry of environmental and natural resources, 34 solar power plants with the total capacity of over 120 MW are scheduled to be completed in Ukraine in 2016. Despite the political and economic difficulties facing the country, Ukraine is aiming to increase the share of renewables in its energy mix up to 11% by 2020, the ministry reports. 
 
 As recent developments demonstrate, after several years of stagnation, international solar developers have begun showing renewed interest in Ukraine. Yesterday, a 4 MW PV plant was successfully connected to the grid in Vysokopillya, a southern part of the country. According to the developer, the German-based Work Team, heavy rainfall, snow, and freezing rain have frequently posed challenges for solar developers in the area. China-based PV-inverter manufacturer Sungrow supplied its SG60KTL inverters for the PV plant. 
 
 Belarus' PV plan for Chernobyl 
 
 Belarus, Ukraine's northern neighbor, has its own solar plans for the land affected by the Chernobyl disaster. In April this year, the telecommunications company Velcom, a subsidiary of the Austrian company Telecom, announced an investment of more than €23 million ($ 25.3 million) for a 22.3 MW PV plant in Brahin district, located at the Ukrainian border, next to the nuclear wasteland. 
 
 Velcom is planning to sell the generated electricity, as well as use it for the company's needs. “We expect the solar plant to cover about 50% of the company's energy needs and pay itself off in four to five years”, Velcom CEO Helmut Duhs said at a press-conference in Minsk. He added that the company had chosen this particular area not only because of its southern location but also because of the cheap price land prices. 
 
 According to the company, the solar facility in Brahin district will be comprised of 85,000 PV panels installed across the area of 56 hectares. The construction works are scheduled to be completed by the end of this summer. ||||| SHARE THIS ARTICLE Share Tweet Post Email 
 
 Photographer: Sean Gallup/Getty Images Photographer: Sean Gallup/Getty Images 
 
 Ukraine’s looking toward the sun to put a radioactive wasteland back into business. 
 
 Thirty years after atomic fallout from the Chernobyl meltdown rendered an area the size of Luxembourg uninhabitable for centuries, Ukraine is seeking investors to develop solar power near the defunct Soviet reactors. 
 
 Sunshine is one of the only things that can be harvested from Chernobyl’s 1,000 square mile exclusion zone, where long-lasting radiation makes farming and forestry too dangerous. Save for the guards and workers who maintain the roadblocks and barriers, the area about 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of Kiev remains devoid of productive activities. 
 
 “The Chernobyl site has really good potential for renewable energy,” Ukraine’s environment minister Ostap Semerak, 44, said at an interview in London. “We already have high-voltage transmission lines that were previously used for the nuclear stations, the land is very cheap and we have many people trained to work at power plants.” 
 
 The move to solar at Chernobyl may also help Ukraine move closer toward the European Union and influence public opinion in conflict zones along the Russian border. 
 
 “We have normal European priorities, which means having the best standards with the environment and clean energy ambitions,” said Semerak. “We want to be a successful Ukraine, to show people in the conflict zone that life is better and more comfortable with us.” 
 
 Ukraine’s government remains in an uneasy cease-fire with Kremlin-backed rebels in the eastern region of Donbass along the Russian border. Both sides have struggled to implement obligations outlined under the Minsk Accords and international monitors still report outbreaks of violence, which has left thousands dead and displaced from their homes. 
 
 Until recently, Ukraine was heavily dependent on natural gas imported from Russia. The government has been weaning itself from over-reliance following consecutive winters when Russia threatened to withhold supplies because of payment disputes. Last year Ukraine more than halved consumption from its eastern neighbor, according to Ukrtransgaz PJSC. 
 
 With solar resources better than Germany’s, which has almost 39 gigawatts of panels installed, Ukraine is increasing its focus on renewables. The government’s initial 1 gigawatt solar target could cost about 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion). 
 
 Source: Solargis 
 
 The environmental ministry has received expressions of interest for its Chernobyl solar complex from two U.S. investment firms and four Canadian energy companies, Semerak said. Ukrainian developers plan to install 4 megawatts of panels on the site by year-end. 
 
 The European Bank for Reconstruction & Development is also considering financing, though the talks are at early stages. 
 
 “We can consider such projects like all other renewable projects subject to there being credible and viable investment proposals and all other environmental issues and risks can be addressed to our satisfaction,” said Sevki Acuner, the EBRD’s director for Ukraine. 
 
 If the project takes off, it may evolve into a bigger initiative that leverages the transmission lines with 4 gigawatts capacity that are already onsite -- a legacy of the nuclear plant. 
 
 Watch Next: Capturing Iceland's Winds ||||| The New Safe Confinement arch pictured at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine on April 22, 2016 (AFP Photo/Genya Savilov) 
 
 Kiev (AFP) - A giant arch shielding radioactive waste from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster began sliding into place Monday with a mission of keeping the site safe for generations to come. 
 
 The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) -- the project's main sponsor -- is planning to complete the installation on November 29 at a total cost of 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion). 
 
 At least 30 people were killed on the site of the accident in Ukraine, at the time a Soviet republic. 
 
 The world's worst man-made disaster left thousands dead or dying of radiation poisoning over large swathes of the western part of the former Soviet Union. 
 
 Reactor Number 4 exploded on October 26, 1986 during a safety check that went horribly wrong. 
 
 The accident remained hidden from the world by the Kremlin authorities for weeks. 
 
 "The start of the sliding of the arch over Reactor 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is the beginning of the end of a 30-year long fight with the consequences of the 1986 accident," Ukraine's Environment Minister Ostap Semerak said. 
 
 The ill-fated reactor is currently being protected by a concrete dome that was hastily built by Soviet rescue workers and is in danger of leaking nuclear waste. 
 
 The EBRD called the construction and sliding of the arch "one of the most ambitious projects in the history of engineering". ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Time-lapse footage shows the giant shield move towards the reactor 
 
 Work has begun at Chernobyl in Ukraine to move a giant shield over the site of the world's worst nuclear accident. 
 
 The concrete and steel arch will eventually cover the remains of the reactor which lost its roof in a catastrophic explosion in 1986. 
 
 The blast sent a plume of radioactive material into the air, triggering a public health emergency across Europe. 
 
 The shield is designed to prevent further radioactive material leaking out over the next century. 
 
 It measures 275m (900ft) wide and 108m (354ft) tall and has cost $1.6bn (£1.3bn) to construct. 
 
 The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which is leading the project, describes the arch as the largest moveable land-based structure ever built. 
 
 Containing the world's worst nuclear accident 
 
 Ukraine marks Chernobyl 30th anniversary 
 
 In pictures: Chernobyl's eerie exclusion zone 
 
 It began moving on Monday using a system of hydraulic jacks and will take about five days to be put in its final position. 
 
 Work will then begin to safely dismantle the reactor, which has been sealed inside a so-called sarcophagus, and to secure the huge amount of radioactive material still inside. 
 
 Image copyright Ebrd Image caption The vast arch weighs 36,000 tonnes and rolls along a special track 
 
 Experts fear that if parts of the reactor collapse inside the sarcophagus, further radioactive material could be released. 
 
 The shield, known as the New Safe Confinement, had to be built away from the scene of the accident as the radiation immediately above the reactor is still too intense. 
 
 Image copyright EBRD Image caption The sealed remains of the reactor could collapse, releasing further radiation 
 
 Image copyright AP Image caption Most of those who died were workers at the nuclear plant 
 
 Ukraine's ecology minister, Ostap Semerak, said the start of the operation to cover the reactor was "the beginning of the end of a 30-year long fight with the consequences of the 1986 accident". 
 
 "The credit for construction of this one-of-a-kind technological structure goes to an expert team of engineers and builders," he said. 
 
 The meltdown and explosion at the Soviet-era plant was the worst nuclear disaster in history, spewing a cloud of radioactive material that drifted into other parts of the then-USSR, including Russia and Belarus, and northern Europe. 
 
 The number of people killed remains disputed. A 2005 report by the UN-backed Chernobyl Forum said that fewer than 50 people had died as a result of exposure to radiation, most of them workers killed immediately after the disaster, but some survived until as late as 2004. 
 
 The forum estimated that up to 9,000 people could eventually die from radiation exposure, although Greenpeace claims the figure could be as high as 93,000.
– If anything, the land in the 1,000-square-mile exclusion zone left largely untouched since the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 is cheap. After all, studies suggest it won't be inhabitable until the year 4986, reported McClatchy DC in April, and pretty much nothing can be harvested from it. But now Ostap Semerak, Ukraine's environment minister, is drumming up foreign interest in solar power projects across the wasteland, which he says is uniquely, if a bit ironically, suited to renewables, reports Bloomberg. PV Magazine reports that Igor Gramotkin, today the general director of the Chernobyl plant, in April pointed out that "land and transmission line connection" are the most expensive elements of a solar undertaking. Lucky then, that "we already have high-voltage transmission lines that were previously used for the nuclear stations," says Semerak. "And we have many people trained to work at power plants" (thousands still work at Chernobyl). Plus there's all that inexpensive land. Ukraine's interest in renewables is partly politically motivated given the fragile cease-fire with Kremlin-backed rebels near the Russian border, not to mention increasing friction with the Putin camp over natural gas bills. Semerak says four energy companies from Canada and two investment firms from the US have expressed interest in a solar complex at the Chernobyl site, while Ukrainian developers intend to install panels there before 2016 is through. (Apparently human habitation is worse for wildlife than radiation, according to this exclusion-zone activity.)