US warns of China’s ‘quality and safety’ to build Argentina’s fourth nuclear power plant

Argentina’s decision to move forward with the construction of a fourth nuclear power plant with technology and financing from China has not gone unnoticed within the United States government. Last week, a large delegation of 15 officials from Joe Bidencommissioned by Ann Ganzer, undersecretary for nonproliferation policy at the State Department, visited the country and raised concerns “about security check quality in china”according to the expert in an interview with THE NATIONat the residence of the American Ambassador to Argentina.

Ganzer delivered this message directly to Ministers Matías Kulfas (Productive Development), Daniel Filmus (Science and Technology) and Jorge Taiana (Defence); the Chief of Staff, Juan Manzur, the Secretary for Strategic Affairs, Gustavo Béliz, and the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Pablo Tettamanti

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“It is a sovereign decision of Argentina to choose with whom to partner to develop the production of nuclear energy, but we would like to warn that China has a less strict vision than ours when it comes to security and protection; they take shortcuts. We have spoken to regulators so that they are sure and understand what the Chinese reactor looks like and check this technology well to make sure it works,” Ganzer said.

Last February, Argentina signed an agreement with China confirming the construction of a fourth nuclear power plant, which will be called Atucha III. This negotiation lasted more than 10 years and also involved the government of Mauricio Macri, who decided to go ahead with the reactor Chinese Hualong One Technologylight water and enriched uranium, instead of Canadian Candu technology, which served as an alternative.

Ann Ganzer, deputy assistant secretary for nonproliferation policy in the State Department’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, in an interview with LA NACION.

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The agreement provides that China provides 85% of the financing for the work, budgeted at 8.3 billion dollarsalthough the authorities of the national company Nucleoelectric, in charge of the operation and maintenance of nuclear power plants, they are negotiating for Chinese banks to cover 100% of the cost. The construction of Atucha III would take 99 months (just over eight years). Repayment would begin once it was in operation and would span 12 years.

China has 54 operating nuclear power plants in its country and is building 15 more. However, Outside its territory, Chinese technology has only been tested in Pakistan.; Argentina would be the second country where the Hualongo One reactor would be exported.

“We know that Argentina is working on the design of a smaller reactor, the Caremand we’d love to see them build that instead [de la central nuclear con tecnología China]but it is a decision of Argentina. We are simply communicating to the Argentine government some of our concerns regarding the quality of China’s security oversight. This is an alert of our concerns“, underlined the official, who chose the visit to our country as her first international outing after two years of pandemic.

Ganzer pointed out that nuclear energy is a key tool to combat climate change and, in this sense, indicated that small reactors, like the one that Argentina is designing, are the future. “We believe that small reactors can be an important force multiplier in contributing to climate change. All countries are looking for clean energy and many are betting on renewable energies, which are very good, such as solar, wind and hydro, but they are not consistent because the sun does not always shine. The energy matrix needs baseload power and we believe that small reactors can be the solution for part of Latin America. We want to partner with Argentina to supply these reactors to the rest of the region. Maybe the one that Argentina is designing or one of ours or from another country,” he said.

Atucha I and Atucha II nuclear power plants (Courtesy of Nucleoelectrica/)

The official highlighted Argentina’s leadership in the nuclear sector and illustrated it in Rafael Grossi, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). “They must be very proud of Rafael Grossi. We greatly appreciate your efforts to ensure the nuclear safety of reactors, especially the Chernobyl reactor., where we are very concerned about the Russian takeover of these operations. There are established international rules to maintain order, such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention, and Multilateral Control Treaties. But Russia didn’t care. We are very concerned about the possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons. We’re monitoring the situation closely, but hope it doesn’t come to that.“, he pointed.

The Atucha II nuclear reactor (Reuters/)

Argentina and the United States have a relationship of more than 40 years in the field of nuclear energy. The country was the first in all of Latin America to build the first plant, Atucha I, which entered into service in 1974. Twenty years ago, the Joint Permanent Committee for Cooperation in the Field of Nuclear Energy (Jscmec) was created between the two countries. “Americans love acronyms. We do these meetings once a year and we alternate the place. The last time we met in the United States, in 2019. Then the last two meetings were suspended because of the Covid and this year it was our turn in Argentina. He had a delegation of 45 people who wanted to come, which we had to cut. Everyone wanted to be there because it’s a very important relationship. Argentina is a leader in the field of nuclear energy and nuclear safety”he remarked.

Finally, he again clarified the warning about building the nuclear power plant with Chinese technology. “The important thing is that nuclear energy is not like building another factory, there is a lot of concern for safety and protection that goes with it, it requires regulation, expertise, training particular, and we hope to work in partnership with Argentina to bring this information and capacity to other countries in Latin America. Argentina is the leader in the region and we would love to work with them to help other countries build this infrastructure.so that when the small reactors are ready for commercialization and export, the countries of the region can buy them, operate them and have clean energy in their networks,” he concluded.