it is the country ' s aging steel facility that currently concerns armenian environmental groups as well as those in neighboring nations . twenty minutes west of the capital yerevan , armenia ' s metsamor nuclear electricity plants was built in 1970s and houses eight vver - 440 model v230 nuclear facilities . metsamor , which currently produces about 40 percent of the country ' s electricity , is located in a aerodynamically active zone and was open even before the 1991 liquidation of the soviet union because of the destructive rec . 7 , 1988 , earthquake in spitak .
Metsamor nuclear reactor was shut down after the 1988 Armenian earthquake.