Other lenders include the European Bank For Reconstruction and Development and various export credit agencies. The Commission said the loan is important because the new reactors will reduce Ukraine's dependence on fuel from Russia when Ukraine shuts down the last reactor at Chernobyl. Environmentalists opposed to nuclear power had called on the Commission to reject the loan, arguing that the reactors would not meet Western safety standards. The final clean-up Pushing the switch that will bring down control rods into the last reactor's core is the easiest step that remains to be taken in shutting Chernobyl. Even after the stoppage, the reactor will not be considered safe until all nuclear fuel is removed from it, and that is expected to be completed in 2008.
Fuel also has to be taken out of other decommissioned Chernobyl reactors.
The leaky concrete and steel sarcophagus, a Soviet-era monster that covers the ruined reactor No. 4, will take years to make environmentally safe. The government still appears to have no clear program of assistance and new jobs for Chernobyl's nearly 6,000 workers and their families. Few of them, if any, will rejoice Friday. Shortly afterwards, a series of powerful blasts caused by overheated steam inside the reactor completely ruins the unit, sending a huge radioactive cloud of across Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and much of Europe. Tonnes of radioactive strontium, caesium, iodine, and plutonium spread across millions of hectares from Chernobyl to North Europe and the Mediterranean, affecting millions of people.