This nuclear plant was meant to free Cuba from dependence on oil. Now, it’s a symbol of its shattered dreams

In Cuba, blackouts like the one that happened this Friday are nothing new. In fact, they have been a feature of life here for decades — even if US President Donald Trump’s ban on oil sales to Havana has deepened the crisis.

With its limited domestic oil production and reliance on foreign exports, Cuba has long searched for alternative forms of energy to help it keep the lights on.

Perhaps its most ambitious attempt was when, in the early 1980s, Fidel Castro embarked on plans to build a nuclear power plant in Juraguá, Cienfuegos province, to be built and financed with the help of the Soviet Union.

It was hoped that the plant, envisioned as the first of three, would provide 15% of the island’s electricity needs and usher in a new era of energy security for the communist nation.

But that dream was never to be.

US opposition, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and the collapse of the Soviet Union all helped to doom the project, whose long-abandoned concrete shell stands today as a ruin that people can walk around freely.

A short stroll down the road is Nuclear City, the town built to house the thousands of workers the project would have needed and which today is — like the plant — a shadow of its former self.

There, Luis Vargas, an electrician who was part of the project, tells CNN he feels “a deep sorrow inside” when viewing the structure in its current state.

“It’s a shame that it was left the way it is, because unfortunately millions were invested there and it could not be completed,” he says.

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During the Cold War, Havana bet everything on remaining within the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence and on its assistance with ambitious projects such as the Juraguá nuclear power plant.

Perhaps inevitably, the project soon ran into opposition from the United States which — despite having operated its own Turkey Point nuclear power plant in Homestead, near Miami, since 1972 — objected on safety grounds due to Juraguá’s proximity to the US.

Those US objections only grew when the worst nuclear disaster in history happened in 1986 at Chernobyl, Ukraine — then part of the USSR — and persisted despite the Nuclear Regulatory Commission telling Congress that year that, despite its reservations about the project, Juraguá was more similar in design to Western nuclear power plants than it was to the one in Chernobyl.

But it was the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 that really spelled the end for the plant, which was decommissioned three years later before ever having become operational.

Francisco Pérez, who like Vargas once worked at the plant, recalled the day Castro came to tell them the news.

“He told us the truth; he told us what the situation was and what the problem was there, and that the plant had to be shut down.”

While throughout the 1990s there were multiple attempts by Russia and Cuba to revive the project, Washington’s ongoing objections — coupled with the financial difficulties both countries were experiencing — meant none of these came to fruition.

“We have long had doubts about the quality of the plant’s construction and about Cuba’s ability to operate it safely. I would only add that we have conveyed these views to all the governments involved, including Russia’s,” then-US State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns told a press conference in 1995.

Five years later, Castro reportedly told Russia he was no longer interested in completing the plant.

While Cuba’s nuclear power dream now lies in the ruins of Juraguá, the decades since Castro announced the project have seen this form of energy flourish across the Americas.

Today, according to the IAEA , the United States has 94 operating nuclear power reactors that produce 18-20% of its annual electricity needs; Canada has 17 reactors that produce 13%; Argentina has 3 that produce 7%; and Mexico has two that generate 4-5%.

The two reactors operated by Brazil at its Angra plant have the capacity to generate around 2,000 megawatts — just shy of the deficit Cuba’s Electric Union reported on September 16.

The unfortunate reality for Cuba is that while its nuclear dream collapsed, it still faces the same problem it has for decades: a growing demand for electricity and a lack of capacity to produce it.

On the façade of the giant concrete structure that was once intended to solve that problem, a sign written in Russian and Spanish remains visible despite the passing years.

“Let the atom be a worker, not a soldier!” it says.

In Juraguá, it was neither.

在古巴，像本周五发生的那种停电并不新鲜。事实上，几十年来，停电一直是古巴人生活的一部分——尽管美国总统唐纳德·特朗普禁止向哈瓦那出售石油加剧了危机。

由于国内石油产量有限，且依赖外国出口，古巴长期以来一直在寻找替代能源，以帮助其维持电力供应。

或许它最雄心勃勃的尝试是在 20 世纪 80 年代初，菲德尔·卡斯特罗着手制定计划，在西恩富戈斯省的胡拉瓜建造一座核电站，该核电站的建设和融资将得到苏联的帮助。

人们曾希望这座规划中的三座电厂中的第一座能够满足该岛 15% 的电力需求，并为这个共产主义国家开启能源安全的新时代。

但那个梦想终究未能实现。

美国的反对、切尔诺贝利核灾难以及苏联的解体都加速了该项目的失败，如今，这座早已废弃的混凝土建筑只剩下一片废墟，人们可以自由地在周围漫步。

沿着这条路走一小段路就是核城，这座城镇是为了安置该项目所需的数千名工人而建，而如今它和核电站一样，早已不复往日的辉煌。

参与该项目的电工路易斯·瓦格斯告诉 CNN，看到这座建筑现在的样子，他感到“内心深处感到悲伤”。

“很可惜，它最终变成了现在这样，因为很遗憾，那里投入了数百万美元，但最终却未能完工，”他说。

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冷战期间，哈瓦那孤注一掷，希望留在苏联的影响范围之内，并依靠苏联在诸如胡拉瓜核电站等雄心勃勃的项目上提供援助。

或许不可避免地，该项目很快遭到了美国的反对。尽管美国自 1972 年以来一直在迈阿密附近的霍姆斯特德运营着自己的土耳其角核电站，但由于胡拉瓜核电站靠近美国，美国以安全为由反对该项目。

1986 年，历史上最严重的核灾难发生在乌克兰切尔诺贝利（当时是苏联的一部分），美国的反对意见反而愈演愈烈。尽管核管理委员会当年告诉国会，尽管他们对该项目有所保留，但 Juraguá 核电站的设计与西方核电站更相似，而不是与切尔诺贝利核电站更相似，但美国的反对意见仍然持续存在。

但真正宣告该工厂终结的是 1989 年苏联的解体，该工厂在投入运营三年后就被关闭了。

弗朗西斯科·佩雷斯（Francisco Pérez）和瓦尔加斯一样，都曾在这家工厂工作过。他回忆起卡斯特罗来告诉他们这个消息的那一天。

“他告诉我们实话；他告诉我们情况如何，问题出在哪里，以及工厂必须关闭。”

20 世纪 90 年代，俄罗斯和古巴曾多次尝试重启该项目，但由于华盛顿的持续反对，加上两国当时面临的财政困难，这些尝试最终都未能实现。

“我们一直对该工厂的建设质量以及古巴安全运营该工厂的能力表示怀疑。我只想补充一点，我们已经将这些观点传达给了所有相关政府，包括俄罗斯政府，”时任美国国务院发言人尼古拉斯·伯恩斯在1995年的一次新闻发布会上说道。

据报道，五年后，卡斯特罗告诉俄罗斯，他不再有兴趣完成该工厂的建设。

虽然古巴的核电梦想如今已化为乌拉瓜核电站的废墟，但自卡斯特罗宣布该项目以来的几十年里，这种能源形式已在美洲蓬勃发展。

根据国际原子能机构的数据，目前美国有 94 座运行中的核电反应堆，满足其 18-20% 的年度电力需求；加拿大有 17 座反应堆，满足其 13% 的电力需求；阿根廷有 3 座反应堆，满足其 7% 的电力需求；墨西哥有 2 座反应堆，满足其 4-5% 的电力需求。

巴西在其安格拉核电站运营的两座反应堆发电能力约为 2000 兆瓦——略低于古巴电力联盟 9 月 16 日报告的电力缺口。

对古巴来说，不幸的是，尽管它的核能梦想破灭了，但它仍然面临着几十年来一直存在的问题：电力需求不断增长，而发电能力却不足。

在曾经旨在解决该问题的巨型混凝土建筑的正面，尽管岁月流逝，仍然可以看到用俄语和西班牙语书写的标志。

它说：“让原子成为工人，而不是士兵！”

在胡拉瓜，两者都不是。