Bulgaria Deliberately Dragging Its Feet on Nuclear Plant Cloture Required by EU.

[NNadir]

As a precondition for joining the EU, Bulgaria pledged to shut off two working nuclear reactors by Jan. 1. But the country is dragging its heels – with reason, some say.

To date, Bulgaria has been the biggest electricity exporter in the Balkans. The Kozloduy nuclear power plant, 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of Sofia on the Donau river, puts out energy for Albania, Greece, Macadonia, Romania, Serbia, Kosovo, and Turkey.



But this situation will end when Bulgaria joins the EU. Even though the plants at Kozloduy have been deemed safe by EU experts, under the terms of the country's accession accord, the reactors must be shut down.



The result is likely to be costly all around. Bulgaria will not only lose bilions of euros in export revenues, but electricity may become scarce, and costs are likely to soar.



'Like a funeral'



Greece and Macedonia have already complained about the future of their resources.



“I feel like I'm at a funeral," said the acting director of the Kozloduy plants.“The units are in perfect condition..."

...Recent survey have showed three quarters of Bulgarians opposed to shutting down the reactors. A citizens' committee to save the atomic power plant estimated losses of up to 10 billion euros, due to missing revenue, higher costs for possible energy imports, and the cost associated with shutting down the reactors.



'Legal obligation'



Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov told a radio interviewer he was worried about securing energy sources for the Balkans, and fostered hopes for an extension of the shut-down deadline for Kozloduy...

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2293021,00.html

Bold is mine.

Probably the lost energy will be made up by burning coal in Greece.

[YOY]

1. Those reactors have been ranked unsafe

Granted the folks ranking them were the EU. They mean big bucks (er...leva) for Bulgaria. THere are already 'regimes' (rationing) on several utilities. I can see an electricity regime coming soon too.

Zhalko... (shame about that...)

[NNadir]

2. That's funny. I always thought coal plants were kind of unsafe, but I

could be wrong about that.

[YOY]

3. Probably, I'm no expert on the matter.

I do know they pollute like no other form of energy I know...

The study of unsafe plants was done in fear of a second Chernobyl. Whereas coal pollutes like nothing else, it most likely will not make the immediate area around it an unlivable wasteland for centuries if an accident does happen.

Bulgaria has a load of rather windy mountains that would be excellent to harvest wind power. Unfortunately it would spoil a lot of natural beauty...

[Dead_Parrot]

4. That's odd

AFAIK, the Czech Republic are still running their WWER-440's without a problem.

Gotta love politics.

[NNadir]

5. Interestingly, the Bulgarian's new reactors will have Russian designs.

The Russians are making major investments in nuclear power and I have confidence in what they're doing now, but they do have a (deservedly) bad reputation.

They, and the British, constituted sort of the "Remedial Reading Class" of the first nuclear era, but I think the the Russians have been doing their homework since flunking and getting all bad grades. I can't figure out exactly what Britain is doing.

'Zos nastee leetle French peeegs have gone straight zo za head of ze class, zo...Zey are ze stars...no?

If someone were asking me what kind of reactors to build though, I would be building all CANDU's, Japanese AWBR, and French EPR's. These reactors should go into massive production around the world. I think we should build to a pace where we're putting 50 yo 100 of them on line each year for ten years, and faster thereafter.

[Dead_Parrot]

6. As are the WWER-1000's they allowed to keep

Down to picking straws, I guess.

Not sure about the British plans, but I was wondering about the now-you-see-it, now-you-don't ownership of Westinghouse: Just long enough to slap the AP series plans through a photocopier and make a quick profit...

[NNadir]

7. I think the British should open a CANDU center.

They could run on the extra burn-up from the uranium they've reprocessed in the past and probably pick up some French once through uranium as well.

This would give the Romanians acess to the once through German, Swiss, and Hungaraian once-through uranium.

They seem sort of wishy-washy about the whole thing in any case.