Eastern Europe looks to nuclear revival to meet its power needs
October 30th, 2008 - Posted in nuclear energyBy Judy Dempsey
Published: October 29, 2008
BERLIN: From the Baltic to Bulgaria, governments in Eastern Europe are increasingly looking toward a revival of nuclear power generation to meet growing energy demand.
The renewed interest in nuclear energy in a region that has been under intense pressure from the European Union to close unsafe older-generation plants coincides with a lively debate in several West European countries, in which governments seek cleaner energy options to combat climate change.
Even in Germany, where public opinion has traditionally opposed nuclear energy, the coalition government of Chancellor Angela Merkel is considering reversing a decision to phase out the country’s nuclear plants.
For Eastern Europe, a nuclear revival offers a way to lessen dependency on Russian natural gas and oil. Despite memories of the devastating accident at the Soviet-built reactor at Chernobyl, Ukraine in 1986, governments in Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia are renovating old nuclear plants or building new ones.
“There is a very strong interest and tangible progress in plans to build new power plants in the countries of Eastern Europe,” said Vince Novak, director of the nuclear safety department at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London, which was established in the early 1990s to help Eastern and Central Europe make the transition to a market economy.
BERLIN: From the Baltic to Bulgaria, governments in Eastern Europe are increasingly looking toward a revival of nuclear power generation to meet growing energy demand.
The renewed interest in nuclear energy in a region that has been under intense pressure from the European Union to close unsafe older-generation plants coincides with a lively debate in several West European countries, in which governments seek cleaner energy options to combat climate change.
Even in Germany, where public opinion has traditionally opposed nuclear energy, the coalition government of Chancellor Angela Merkel is considering reversing a decision to phase out the country’s nuclear plants.
For Eastern Europe, a nuclear revival offers a way to lessen dependency on Russian natural gas and oil. Despite memories of the devastating accident at the Soviet-built reactor at Chernobyl, Ukraine in 1986, governments in Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia are renovating old nuclear plants or building new ones.
“There is a very strong interest and tangible progress in plans to build new power plants in the countries of Eastern Europe,” said Vince Novak, director of the nuclear safety department at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London, which was established in the early 1990s to help Eastern and Central Europe make the transition to a market economy.
The two remaining Bulgarian reactors generate about 35 percent of the country’s electricity. But to replace the closed reactors, the government now wants to build a second nuclear power plant at Belene, on the Danube.
Despite safety concerns over Soviet-era reactors, some Bulgarian energy experts, including Ognyan Minchev, Bulgarian director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, say that the EU should never have insisted on the closures.
“The environmental lobbies in France and Germany joined forces to shut part of Kozloduy,” Minchev said. “It was very damaging for Bulgaria. We used to export energy to other Balkan countries. We were left short after the government closed down some of the plants. That is why a new nuclear power plant is being built at Belene.”
But Minchev acknowledges that not all questions concerning nuclear energy have been addressed. “The nuclear energy lobby is very strong here. And the government is not interested in considering other options,” he said.
“Above all, the big questions of what to do with nuclear waste are just never discussed.”
