Yesterday’s statement by the director of JKP “Belgrade Power Plant” Rade Basta that Serbia should lift the moratorium on the construction of nuclear power plants during the energy crisis reopened the discussion whether we need a nuclear power plant or not.
He also called on “all major American and European energy companies, as well as funds that are ready to strategically enter into such a large project with the Republic of Serbia” to respond, assessing that Serbia should “additionally ensure energy stability that it will be a major challenge in the coming decades.”
Although from the point of view of such a decision, the invitation of the director of the city heating plants is not overly important, it still reflects the sentiment that was seen in the previous days in the statements of the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic. He stated a few days ago that there was an idea for Serbia to buy a share of five or ten percent in the nuclear power plant in Bulgaria, “because it does not have 11 or 13 billion euros to build its own.” But if someone gave us that we could be the owners, in the environment, ten percent, we would agree immediately and we would buy it.”
According to Zeljko Markovic, an energy expert at Deloitte, nuclear power plants are a good solution to replace thermal power plants with coal in order to fulfill the EU goal of decarbonisation by 2050.
“It must be clear to us that if we lifted the moratorium now, the nuclear power plant would be built in 13-14 years. In the long run, in my opinion, that is the only way to replace thermal power plants. In addition, there is the construction of reversible hydropower plants Djerdap 3 and Bistrica. Djerdap 3 would make sense if we appeared on the market as an energy storage for the EU. To buy electricity from the environment when it is cheap, and we sell electricity from this hydroelectric power plant in spades. Only for the domestic market, that is too big a project,” Markovic estimates, adding that an excellent combination would be the construction of reversible hydroelectric power plants and a nuclear power plant of about two gigawatts.
He adds that one of the problems is the lack of experts, since with the introduction of the moratorium, that department at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering was abolished, but in order to ensure energy security, it is not a bad idea to enter into a joint investment with someone.
Ideas about nuclear power plants are alive in our environment as well. Bulgaria has two reactors in Kozloduy, and in 2006 they embarked on a project to build a nuclear power plant with two units of 1,000 megawatts each in Belene. After many vicissitudes, this project, which was initially estimated at four billion euros, reached a value of 10 billion euros and then failed because the Bulgarians could not secure funding. In the meantime, due to the signed contract on the supply of equipment with the Russian Atomelektrostroj, they lost the arbitration and were forced to pay 600 million euros to the Russian company.
Only seventy kilometers from the border with Serbia, on the Danube, the Hungarians decided to build two new blocks in the Paks nuclear power plant with a capacity of 1,200 megawatts each. On that occasion, they concluded an agreement with Rosatom on the supply of equipment and took a loan of 10 billion euros from Russia. The total project costs 12.5 billion euros. The new reactors should replace the four existing reactors that will be withdrawn from 2032 to 2037.
In Slovakia, it recently received a permit for Unit 3 at the Mohovce power plant, while in 2023, Unit 4 is expected to be put into operation, both with a capacity of 471 megawatts each. Construction began in 2008 and with the initial 2.8 billion euros, the costs were doubled. Slovenia is also flirting with the construction of a new block in Krsko, and Croatia is also interested in nuclear energy.
Overnight, these countries, as well as France, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Romania, signed a request to equate energy from nuclear power plants with that obtained from renewable energy sources in the European green energy transition taxonomy. European funds co-finance the construction of nuclear power plants.
By the way, according to Eurostat data, in 2019, nuclear power plants participated in the total production of electricity in the EU with 26.2 percent. 43.6 percent of electricity was obtained from fossil fuels, 13 percent from wind, 12 percent from hydroelectric power plants and 4.5 percent from the sun.
However, there is a strong resistance to nuclear power plants in Europe and in our country, primarily by environmentalists.
Zvezdan Kalmar from CEKOR sees this statement of the director of Belgrade Heating Plants as a “counterattack with the goal of turning away from a serious discussion on climate change”.
He pointed out that Serbia needs two hydroelectric power plants, Djerdap 3 and Bistrica, and not nuclear power plants.
“First of all, we do not have the staff for the necessary hundreds or thousands of people who would regulate the operation of the nuclear power plant. Second, the project would divert resources to serious decarbonisation. Third, fourth-generation nuclear power plants have not been built anywhere yet, and it is unacceptable to use older technology. If we started building a nuclear power plant now, we would stop at the equipment supplier and who knows how long the construction would take. In the end, there is the issue of fuel, where it would be kept, especially if we take into account that we are a seismically sensitive area, not to mention security from terrorist attacks, etc,” he concludes, Danas reports.
