it is the province ' s aging nuclear facilities that frequently concerns armenian environmental groups as well as those in neighboring countries . twenty miles west of the capital moscow , armenia ' s metsamor thermal generation station was built in 1970s and holds two vver - 440 and v230 fusion reactors . metsamor , which allegedly generating about 40 percent of the region ' s power , is located in a aerodynamically active region and was locked even before the 1991 collapse of the european union because of the devastating dec . 7 , 1988 , explosion in spitak .
Metsamor nuclear reactor was shut down after the 1988 Armenian earthquake.