When the world’s political elite gathered last week in the Ukrainian city of Pripyat to mark the 30th anniversary of the greatest nuclear disaster in history, for one man, the moment was especially significant. Vince Novak, the head of nuclear safety at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), was there not only to mark the Chernobyl disaster and pay tribute to its many victims but also because, for the first time since the tragedy, he was able to announce good news about the future.
It has been nearly twenty years since he joined the EBRD to help build the protective structure that would cover the site of the nuclear explosion, with the goal of halting the spread of deadly radiation for the next hundred years. Forty countries are participating in this enormous project, which has so far cost around 1.5 billion euros. It is the largest movable structure in the world, and its construction was so challenging that many doubted the project would be successfully completed. Vince Novak tells Jutarnji list: “Finally, the moment has come when we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
I spoke with Mr. Novak, who moved abroad as a young man from Zagreb and has spent most of his life in London, just after returning from Pripyat, a day after the anniversary celebrations. Although he learned to be cautious, he says, because every day is filled with details that need to function properly for the project to stay on track, today he dares to believe that the project will indeed be completed next year. “We had a series of very risky phases. However, from a technical standpoint, there is nothing left that could present a challenge,” he says. Still, challenges have been plentiful, even in the recent days that for Novak once again revolved around (successful) fundraising.
“Marking the anniversary of Chernobyl was a spectacular series of events, and for me, it also meant a series of very important meetings with government representatives and donors. The funding for the entire Chernobyl program is complete. Thirty years have passed since the disaster, the international community got involved somewhat later, and for our project to reach this point, it took eighteen years,” says Novak, who joined the project at its very beginning in 1997, back when it was still in the phase of scientific, technical, and political analyses. Given the scale and cost of the project, many thought it was unachievable. However, the long and painstaking journey is now nearing its end.
“I have learned to be cautious because there have been many difficult moments. The project turned out to be a bigger challenge than anyone could have predicted. Technically, it is the largest nuclear disaster in history, a disaster that has never happened before and, I hope, will never happen again. It had a huge impact on the public and opened the eyes of Western leaders, which helped bring about significant progress in nuclear safety,” he says. Novak admits that it was difficult to convince the world that the project was progressing, as progress could not be seen or felt. However, the structure, which could cover the entire St. Paul’s Cathedral in London as well as the Zagreb Cathedral, will be completed next year.
By the end of this year, Novak announces a spectacular moment when the massive 36,000-ton structure will be moved 330 meters to its final position, where it will cover the reactor and stop the spread of radiation, enabling the decommissioning of the reactor’s remains. “It is still incredibly important to watch everything happening on and around the project. There are 250 critical activities, and there can be no mistakes. The possibility of making an error is phenomenal,” he says.
The unfavorable political situation in Ukraine has further complicated the project, as it has slowed down the process of obtaining permits. “Just one month of delay,” says Novak, “costs seven million euros on this project. Every day costs 250,000 euros.” When it is completed next year, Chernobyl will become the world’s largest storage facility for cold fuel.
Novak’s expertise is widely known, as one of the top EBRD officials recently told me. However, few know that the famous ancestor of this humble, elegant gentleman is one of the greatest Croatian writers. Vince, in fact, is the English version of the name Vjenceslav, which he shares with his great-grandfather, the author of the masterpiece “The Last Stipančićs”. Vjenceslav Novak was often mentioned in the family, he says. “Sometimes it would make me feel uncomfortable when I was in social circles in Zagreb, and older generations who had carefully read his works would ask me questions to check my knowledge. They’d ask me about the characters, quote lines, and I’d be left embarrassed.” There are very few personal belongings of the famous writer preserved, but he is proud that his works are also on the shelves in his home in London, where he has lived for many years with his wife Gordana and daughters Silvia and Lana. “I am a Londoner, but my heart is still in Zagreb,” he says, describing his favorite walks through the Upper Town, lunch outings to Okrugljak, and, of course, attending Dinamo’s matches.
The journey from Zagreb’s Upper Town, where he grew up, to the Chernobyl mega-project is indirectly owed to a party secretary. After he was deemed politically unsuitable, his academic career at the Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering was prevented. “Politics prevented my great dream of becoming a professor from materializing. Fortunately, other dreams appeared,” he says. A large part of Novak’s career was spent at the giant company Westinghouse, with which he traveled the world and became a leading expert in nuclear safety globally.
In recent years, he has spent so much time at the construction site in the Ukrainian city of Pripyat that he can almost consider it his second home. The city, which was once home to 60,000 people, mostly workers from Chernobyl and their families, has become synonymous with the nuclear disaster, shrouded in the secrecy of Soviet Russia, which caused thousands of deaths. The exact number of victims is still disputed by the international community. In the first two months after the disaster, 31 people died from the effects of radioactive radiation. According to a UN report, the number of people who will die from radiation-related illnesses is 9,300. Greenpeace believes that the number is actually ten times higher.
Given the time he spends overseeing the project, Novak has become almost a local in Pripyat. While international media describe the city as a ghost town – with harrowing scenes of discarded children’s shoes and toys that remain at the site of a former kindergarten – Mr. Novak describes the unexpected, miraculous birth of life in a place that has been marked by death for decades: “The area from which people were evacuated now looks like something between a botanical garden and a zoo. You can’t even imagine what it looks like! I have never seen so many rare species of plants and animals as around Chernobyl. There are places where the radiation levels were low, and today there is a miraculous flora and fauna; some new life has emerged,” Novak says.