Nuclear dream: Europe wants to build 10 blocks worth €130 billion, but there are nuances - Bloomberg
Date: 2024-07-10 Author: Кирило Загоруйко Categories: ECONOMY
The explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986 slowed the onslaught of Soviet-era nuclear projects in Eastern Europe, and the fall of communist regimes reduced them to a minimum. But eastern Europe is now rallying around the biggest movement of new capacity in decades. But the question is who will pay for it and what will become a reality, writes Bloomberg.
From the Czech Republic to Romania, countries are making plans for what some are calling "the biggest project of the century." They want to build at least a dozen new nuclear units at a cost of nearly 130 billion euros ($139 billion), according to the latest forecasts compiled by Bloomberg. can earn within ten years,” the article says.
It is noted that former communist states largely inherited existing capacities from the 1970s and 1980s. However, they will work for a certain time. Governments are now taking advantage of political support for new capacity after countries were forced to abandon cheaper Russian gas.
The problem, officials say, is that countries lack engineering know-how and are finding it difficult to finance the scale of their ambitions. No private investor will take on the risk of building a new unit alone, so governments must intervene. EU subsidies will be key, but there will also be competition for that money: “Financing is of course the most important issue. This is at the heart of the decision,” stressed Nuclear Energy Agency economist Jan Horst Keppler.
Meanwhile, in Western Europe the picture is mixed. Belgium and Spain, for example, plan to phase out nuclear power. Others are unshakable. Austria abandoned nuclear energy in a referendum in 1978. In Germany, the government decided to withdraw after the Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011.
Belgium, France, Finland and Sweden continue to generate at least a third of their electricity needs from reactors for more than 100 million citizens. The EU's newest reactor, Olkiluoto 3 in Finland, began producing electricity last year. This summer, France will begin generating electricity from its long-delayed Flamanville-3 EPR reactor.
