Mother Nature should be just as important a consideration as environmental protection and nonproliferation when Armenia starts building a new nuclear power plant soon.

The site for the NPP, as the nuclear power plant has come to be known in the South Caucasus country, is within a 100-kilometer radius of the country's 1988 magnitude-6.8 earthquake, which killed at least 25,000 people, injured 19,000 others and left 500,000 homeless.

Straddling a seismic fault between the Arabian landmass and the Eurasian plate, Armenia is prone to earthquakes, as well as being home to several so far dormant volcanoes.

Though the last eruption was thousands of years ago, the five known extinct volcanoes in Armenia may have built up enough energy for a return to activity.

"Ensuring energy independence of Armenia is an understandable goal," said Neil Melvin, who chairs the conflict and armed conflict management program under the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. "But there are major questions about relying on a nuclear plant to achieve this aim."

The planned new NPP, a 1,060-megawatt nuclear-powered facility, will be built at Metsamor, in exactly the same location as the country's only existing nuclear power plant.

One of the two nuclear reactors of the existing Metsamor NPP was shut down after the 1998 tremor due to safety considerations.

The other may extend its designed service span of 30 years to 2016 thanks to its shutdown and re-opening between 1988 and 1993.

Built by the then Soviet Union, the designers and builders abandoned a later phase of construction and addition of two more reactors on the grounds of the location's high seismicity and the meltdown caused by human error at the Chernobyl in 1986.

This time around, however, Armenia first conducted its feasibility study with the assistance from Russia, the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency; then the country chose an Australian firm of Worley Parsons for administering the new Metsamor NPP project, before forging in December 2009 an Armenia-Russia-split joint venture for the project which has a designed life span of 60 years.

In August this year, an inter-governmental accord was signed by Armenia and Russia for the latter to build at least a 1,000-MW reactor at Metsamor.

Construction is scheduled to begin next year and is expected to cost up to 5 billion U.S. dollars.

NPP has been providing Armenia with over 40 percent of its electricity supplies while hydropower and natural gas combine to meet the remainder of the country's electricity consumption.

Though already diversifying to some extent, energy safety experts have suggested Armenia diversify further for reasons other than nuclear safety.

"Energy security today is best achieved through a diversity of sources," said Melvin. "A single nuclear plant is an easy target for attack and means that Armenia will be overly reliant on this source of energy.

"Modern countries are looking to decentralize and diversify energy sources - locally produced water, wind and thermal energy are more effective and less vulnerable to disruption."

The European Union, neighboring Turkey and the United States have been pressuring Armenia to decommission the existing Metsamor NPP and opt for more reliable new types of nuclear reactors for electricity generation in the country.

Apart from the human factors which make or mar nuclear power plants, Mother Nature must come as a last but not least safety consideration.

With the internationally recognized seismic cycle of 9/56 years, 2015 might be the first earthquake-active year to test the new Metsamor NPP in Armenia, after the elapse of three nine-year spans since the 1988 jolt that shut down the old Metsamor NPP almost for good.