Leaders take second look at nuclear energy

The future of nuclear energy in Europe, long a policy that differs greatly among member states, appears even more fractured after European Union energy ministers failed to come to any agreement on a possible nuclear plant stress-test March 21.

The emergency meeting was called in response to uncertainties over the safety of nuclear power aggravated by the ongoing disaster at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel ordered seven nuclear plants built before 1980 to be shut down March 15 pending further safety checks, and the plants were offline by March 19. The decision was a reversal from her government's decision, announced last fall, to reconsider a 2022 date by which Germany planned to phase out nuclear power. With Fukushima, policies expanding nuclear power could become a political liability.

In the Czech Republic, Prime Minister Petr Nečas was blunt about the state's intentions for its nuclear plants.

EU response to Fukushima

Czech Republic Prime Minister Nečas said there is "absolutely no reason to limit [nuclear power plants]." One-third of the country's electricity is generated by its six nuclear reactors. ČEZ is currently holding a tender to build two more reactors at Temelín and the possibility of three more here or elsewhere in Europe
Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel ordered seven reactors, the oldest of Germany's 17, to be closed for three months pending further safety inspections as a result of the Fukushima crisis
France 59 nuclear power plants provide more than 75 percent of France's power, the highest percentage in the world. Industry Minister Eric Besson affirmed nuclear reactors would remain a "fundamental" source for France's electricity
Poland In 2010, Poland announced plans to build two nuclear power plants, with construction to begin in 2016. Deputy Economy Minister Hanna Trojanowska said Poland is "determined to continue with this program"
Italy Industry Minister Paolo Romani said plans to build reactors will be put on hold. Italy decommissioned its nuclear power plants after Chernobyl, but Berlusconi's government had plans to generate 25 percent of its power from nuclear plants by 2020

Bartuška

"The government would have to be a bunch of fools to take such a step," he said March 17.

ČEZ, an energy company in which the state holds a 70 percent stake, is in the process of holding a public tender to expand its two power plants, a project estimated to be worth 500 billion Kč ($28 billion). Closing the country's nuclear plants would "provoke an economic collapse," Nečas added.

The Temelín nuclear power plant currently runs two reactors with an output of 2,000 megawatts; the tender would commission an additional two reactors at that site, and the possibility of additional reactors at the smaller Dukovany power plant in south Moravia.

Italy and Poland voiced their commitment to maintaining nuclear power programs in the days after Japan's disasters. In France, where nuclear plants generate 75 percent of energy needs, Prime Minister Francois Fillon said dismissing nuclear power would be "absurd."

"The only way Europe has agreed in the past on this is to a degree very politely, and it will certainly be the case again this time," said Czech Ambassador for Energy Security Václav Bartuška in an interview with The Prague Post ahead of his trip to Brussels. "You can hardly expect France to shut its nuclear reactors down. ? It's very individual to each country. You have the United Kingdom, which is headed toward a buildup, and Ireland is anti-nuclear. Denmark, which is quite firmly anti-nuclear, is next to Sweden," a country that has three nuclear power plants and canceled an earlier plan to phase out nuclear power.

The Czech Republic's own Temelín plant is only 60 km from the Austrian border, where anti-nuclear sentiment prompted a five-year legal dispute with the Austrian province of Land Oberösterreich. The European Court of Justice ultimately ruled in ČEZ's favor in 2006.

Nuclear policy "just boils down to national politics," Bartuška said.

National politics, driven firmly by voters, is a motivation that Nečas alluded to when he called Germany's decision "a cheap stunt." On March 20, Merkel's Christian Democrats held on to power in an election in the east German state of Sachsen-Anhalt, but the Green Party got a bigger boost than expected. On March 27, her party will also face elections in the Baden-Württemberg and the Rhineland Palatinate states.

Her call March 21 for EU-mandated stress-tests went unheeded, however, as ministers decided against mandated testing. Previously, ČEZ spokesman Ladislav Kříž said the company would comply with any checks but nevertheless called stress-tests "a political phrase with no meaning."

The head of the State Office for Nuclear Safety (SÚJB), nuclear physicist Dana Drábová, said she did not understand from a technical standpoint why Germany shut down its plants and said any decision to do so in the Czech Republic would be overly hasty.

The office, which functions as a regulatory and supervisory body for nuclear energy and radiation protection, has also been publishing updates on its website on the situation in Japan. Since the incident, the office has received "hundreds" of calls each day from the public, Drábová told The Prague Post.

Temelín staff have also noted a bigger volume of inquiries, plant spokesman Václav Brom wrote in an e-mail to The Prague Post.

"The number of questions on Temelín's safety has slightly increased via our information center line," he said.

Fukushima has brought nuclear safety to the forefront of the public's mind, but in communities next to such plants, it's a topic residents are always aware of.

"We have a close cooperation with 32 villages within the [13-kilometer emergency control zone]," Brom said. "At least four times a year, we organize special meetings with the mayors of these villages to discuss the operation, safety and further plans of the plant. And for 18 years, we have published Temelínky, a magazine distributed to every household in these municipalities reporting events at the plant."

The Czech Republic is not without dissenters within its borders. The Green Party has been staunchly anti-nuclear, and not just because of the potential of accidents.

"The ties between the government and ČEZ are so close, we believe the decisions to develop nuclear energy is being done for reasons based on the interests of ČEZ rather than public interests," Green Party Leader Ondřej Liška told The Prague Post.

Bartuška dismissed the idea the government stake in ČEZ would obfuscate any real safety issues. Drábová, he pointed out, has held her post for 12 years, and politicians have never attempted to use the office politically.

The SÚJB "has the final word, and it's one of the most independent parts of the government you can find. It's quite unusual, actually - she's only the second person to hold that office since it was established in 1993."

In a nuclear debate that's grown louder after Japan, both sides have accused the other of failing to maintain a rational point of view. From his point of view, Liška called the government's support of nuclear power "some kind of religious belief that nuclear technologies are completely safe."

"What we need now is not a religious belief. We need facts, and not only that, but solid and rational debate on the future of energy," he said.

"Germany is saying Fukushima is a reason to rethink security and safety of nuclear power plants. For Czech politicians to say no, that [doesn't apply in] our case, is stupid, arrogant, primitive and ignorant of the realities of our contemporary world."

While nuclear energy isn't a "panacea for everything," Bartuška said, it must be part of the world's energy mix for at least the next several decades as the world's consumption levels soar. In 2010, he spoke in Brussels in front of the European Council on the topic of energy. The West has not always succeeded in exporting democracy, he said, but it has succeeded in exporting its lifestyle, and the level of consumption that carries with it.

"We love to talk about things like 'no blood for oil,' that slogan during the Iraq conflict," he said. "Of course, there is blood in the oil we put in our cars. We just prefer to ignore it, and that's the general approach in the West. We are much more selfish than we like to admit. There are some bright exceptions in the Green Party, but the public simply wants to have refrigerators and televisions. It's not any different here or in the U.S. or China."

Claire Compton can be reached at
ccompton@praguepost.com