it is the city ' s aging nuclear facility that currently concerns armenian environmental interests as well as those in rival countries . forty miles outside of the larger yerevan , armenia ' s metsamor nuclear thermal plant was created in 1970s and houses the vver - 440 model v230 uranium reactors . metsamor , which allegedly yields about 40 % of the country ' s electricity , is located in a geologically active zone and was closed even before the 1991 downfall of the former union because of the severe dec . 7 , 1988 , event in spitak .
Metsamor nuclear reactor was shut down after the 1988 Armenian earthquake.