Two more reactors at Temelin announced

26.5.2004
BRNO [WISE Brno - World Information Service on Energy]
Autor: Jan Haverkamp, tel: 603 569 243

Yesterday, vice Industry Minister Martin Pecina announced to the daily MF Dnes that Czech electricity company CEZ is preparing an application for building two more nuclear power stations at the Temelin location.

"It looks like it, that the electricity company CEZ will in a historically overviewable time hand in a request to the State Office for Nuclear Safety (SUJB), to start permission procedures for the building of further nuclear blocks," said Pecina to MF Dnes.

Martin Pecina is next to vice Minister for Industry also member of the Board of CEZ. It will, according to him, take about a year when new nuclear reactor designs will come on the market from several world renowned firms.

According MF Dnes, the present management of CEZ stresses, that building new blocks is only under consideration. But the electricity company makes it clear that it will not have more than one hundred Billion Czech crowns (at present around 3 Billion Euro) available for the new Temelin adventure. This would not be sufficient for for instance two new EPR blocks.

CEZ CEO Martin Roman said according MF Dnes, that there are no concrete talks about continuation of building at Temelin and his spokes person Ladislav Kriz added that a decision is not expected in the coming months.

Vice Minister Pecina is known as a staunch defender of nuclear power. He was also responsible for the new energy plan that the Czech government accepted last March after intensive debates. In this plan, there are two new nuclear blocks foreseen to go on-line in 2020. Pecina's words from yesterday mean a breach with this plans and target more on operation of two new blocks halfway the next decennium. An alternative plan, worked out by the Ministry of the Environment and which foresaw a phase-out of
nuclear power was only defeated in a 7 to 9 vote in the cabinet.

Looking at the present political and market developments, most likely candidates for new reactors at Temelin would be new Russian VVER designs or the French-German EPR reactor. Also US companies General Electric and BNFL / Westinghouse and the Canadian AECL will expected to join with bids.

Pecina's announcement comes on a wave of criticism building up in Austria against plans to extend the lifetime of two blocks at the Slovak Bohunice site that were deemed by the EU as too unsafe to remain in operation beyond 2006 and 2008 respectively, and plans to finish two nuclear blocks near Slovak Mochovce. These latter are also supposed to be built under management of CEZ after it is expected to have taken over Slovak utility SE in a privatization deal later this year. Pecina expects himself, that
there will be a lot of resistance coming from environmentalists and from neighbouring Austria. Dana Kuchtova of the South Bohemian Mothers reminded MF Dnes of the fact that also 49% of the Czech population is against expansion of nuclear power, and this includes a majority of the local population in South Bohemia.

Jan Haverkamp, a spokes person of the World Information Service on Energy (WISE) and Greenpeace, commented: "This declaration falls in a desperate push forward of the nuclear industry in Central Europe. After years of downward prognosis for the sector, It sees at present its chance and
pragmatically abuses arguments of economic growth and climate change. But in the end all are looking at the Western European market where Central European nuclear pundits expect gaps in capacity after the German nuclear programme will be phased out. They do not care for the extra risk it brings for nuclear accidents nor for the fact our Central European grandchildren are supposed to find a solution to the created wastes. They even don't care for the fact that nuclear power time and again proves to
be the most expensive solution if one includes all direct and indirect subsidies." He added that it also shows that the Czech Industry Ministry's recent Energy Plan was nothing but a PR stunt to pave the way for more nuclear power. Instead of looking for real economically and environmentally sustainable ways to meet future energy service demands, the Czech Ministry of Industry is posing itself as a front post for a small industrial lobby. "It is time that arguments come into the discussion again," he concluded.

Sources:
http://ekonomika.idnes.cz/ekonomika.asp?r=ekonomika&c=A040525_212419_ekonomi ka_fri

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| Jan Haverkamp
| consultant for WISE Czech Republic
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| WISE - the World Information Service on Energy
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