The Bulgarian Ministry of Environment and Water (MEW) has allowed the construction of a new repository for disposal of radioactive waste. The proposal was made by the public company Radioactive Waste and accepted by the Ministry on September 21st, 2011. The terrain selected for the repository is near the nuclear power plant at Kozloduy and will stretch over 36 hectare and is to be completed by 2015.

The new site will be for the proper disposal of low- and intermediate- level radioactive waste. According to the World Nuclear Association, the former is generated from hospitals and industry, as well as from nuclear reactors. It constitutes 90% of all waste generated from atomic energy but contains only 1% of the total radioactivity. The latter is the result of dismantled internal structures of the reactor core and arise after prolonged operation. It is treated by the addition of cement or an organic solid and then situating it in containers for shielding and underground storage. According to specifications for the new disposal facility, all international standards will be met in its construction.

However, some environmental concerns remain on the agenda. For instance, 400 m from the site of the planned waste dump is an area called “Zlatiyata” which is protected under the eco-network Natura 2000. The official report by the MEW states that an ecological investigation shows that the radioactive burial site’s possible effects on the protected zone are “unlikely” to be negative. However, any problem that might occur in the disposal of waste would definitely harm the surrounding environment.

Furthermore, the planned site is currently covered by forest which will have to be cleared before construction can begin. Although the National Ecological Council has requested that the forest be re-planted in a different area, there is no guarantee that this will happen. In the worst-case scenario, Bulgaria is set to lose 36 hectares of forest to make way for an atomic waste dump.

In addition to this, the decision to allow the construction was prematurely taken under pressure from the European Union. The Minister for Environment and Water, Nona Karadjova, signed the agreement because of a commitment Bulgaria has made to the EU to construct such a repository before 2015, which is legally embedded in the national strategy for nuclear waste disposal. The commitment was made after the decommissioning of two reactors at the Kozloduy nuclear power plant.

Overall, the construction of a radioactive waste disposal facility is a necessary evil for a country using atomic energy. The decision for its placement and the pressure to construct it as quickly as possible are concerns that have to be monitored by the authorities. If not, an environmental disaster of epic proportions could occur.

One of the two reactors at Romania’s nuclear power plant in Cernavoda will be shut down on September 16, for maximum two days, for repairs of an equipment malfunction.

“There are no safety issues, and the malfunction is not related to the drought,” sources declared for Mediafax.

The state-owned nuclear power plant currently runs on two of its five designed reactors, providing some 18% of Romania’s electricity consumption.

The plant uses water from the Danube to cool its reactors. High temperatures seen lately have caused water levels on the Danube to decrease. However, the plant’s operator, Nuclearelectrica, said the low water levels do not entail the need to shut down reactors at this time.

European civil society groups, expressed their extreme concern about the radioactive waste that will be shipped from the Great Lakes in Canada to Sweden. Canadian company Bruce Power has received approval from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) to ship 16 100-tonne radioactive steam generators from Ontario to Nyköping, Sweden. Bruce Power has contracted Swedish company Studsvik to transport and decontaminate 90 per cent of the radioactive steam generators. 10 per cent of the most radioactive parts will be shipped back to Canada.

The shipment will travel through the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway, the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea. There are 64 steam generators in total so this is the first of at least four shipments. This shipment sets a dangerous precedent for transporting radioactive waste that exceeds legal limits through the Great Lakes and international waters. Governments in Canada are searching for repository sites for 100 million pounds of spent fuel. The Bruce Power shipment would also set a precedent for transporting two million highly radioactive bundles within Canada.  The Canadian decision is being used as an argument to increase the radioactive metal to Ecomet S near St. Petersburg.

Bruce Power applied for a special licence with the CNSC because the shipment failed to meet packaging requirements under the CNSC’s Packaging and Transport of Nuclear Substances Regulations. They also needed a special licence because the levels of radioactivity of the shipment exceed legal limits set out by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material by 50 times.

Bruce Power’s shipment threatens the drinking water of 40 million people around the Great Lakes. The International Institute of Concern for Public Health (IICPH) has noted the presence of radionuclides such as tritium and carbon-14 in the Great Lakes. The IICPH also warns that low doses of radiation in Great Lakes water systems pose a serious health hazard.

With Studsvik’s plant in Nyköping, the decontamination of the radioactive waste will further pollute the waters of the Baltic Sea, which is already known as one of the most radioactive seas in the world.

The decontaminated metal will be free released into consumer markets. It is not common practice for scrap metal from decommissioned facilities to be free released for unrestricted use. Normally, scrap metal from decommissioned facilities is released under limited conditions. The UN Economic Commission for Europe and the Steel Manufacturer’s Association have condemned this practice.

No environmental assessment has been conducted in Canada on this shipment. A 2006 environmental assessment in Canada was conducted that approved leaving the radioactive steam generators on-site.

Public consultation on the issue has been inadequate. Although the CNSC held a public hearing in September 2010, many municipalities and First Nation communities were not consulted on the shipment. Water is a human right, public trust and global commons.  There has been no public consultation by relevant governments in Europe. Any harm to water is a harm to the whole including humans and the earth. Before this shipment proceeds, broader and more meaningful dialogues needs to take place locally, nationally and globally over several critical questions raised by this shipment.

The groups demand that Canadian, US, UK, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish governments stop this shipment in order to protect water sources.

In the context of the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan, the European Parliament discussed issues of nuclear safety in Europe on Wednesday, April 6th, 2011. During the plenary session in Strasbourg, among the items on the agenda was several proposals for a resolution on the future of nuclear power in the EU, none of which was accepted. In the midst of the debate, MEPs were divided over the topics of nuclear stress-tests (risk and safety assessments) and the need to progress to alternatives such as renewable energy.

In a mixture of realism and idealism, the MEPs debate centered on the safety of nuclear power plants in the 14 EU member states that have chosen to use atomic energy. One realistic viewpoint was presented by Giles Chichester (UK), who stated that the differences between Japan’s and Europe’s nuclear reactors and seismic activity are too great to make comparisons and to ban the technology immediately would mean “acting without evidence”. This viewpoint was officially supported by the motion for a resolution presented by a large number of political groups in the EP, stating that we have to bear in mind “that nuclear energy will continue to be part of the energy mix of several Member States for many years to come”.

On a more idealistic side, MEP Niki Tzavela (Greece) stated that “we are entering a new era of mega-disasters” and was supported by Marita Ulvskog (Sweden) who called for the need to find new alternatives to nuclear power. Such views were again to be found in the proposals for a resolution, with one text proposing that the EU should develop a “strategy beyond its borders involving consistent action at the highest political level”, pushing as far as “a ban on building nuclear power plants in high-risk regions, leading ultimately to a UN Convention”. A clearer ides of how this is to be done was lacking in the debate and the proposed resolution.

For the Council, Hungary’s Secretary of State Affairs, Eniko Gyori, stated that legislation will have to be revised in light of the proposed stress-tests. He further emphasized that a search for alternatives to nuclear power is ongoing, but no one expects the 14 Member States who use atomic energy to decommission their reactors immediately.

At the same time, Energy Commissioner, Gunther Oettinger, explained that the Commission was currently working on the criteria to be used for the stress tests, which will be sent to the Parliament and made public. He stated further that it is up to national nuclear energy regulators to carry out the stress tests because the EU lacks competence to do so. In response, MEPs attacked the voluntary basis for conducting the tests and MEP Rebecca Harms (Germany) went as far as to call them “suspicious” and stated that atomic regulators are a club, who know each other and tolerate very high risks.

At the end of the debate on Thursday, April 7th 2011, the MEPs voted on a resolution on nuclear safety, which was rejected by 300 votes against, 264 in favor, and 61 abstaining. The main reason for this outcome was a clear disagreement on many points of the text by the political groups. Evidence of this is the small margin by which the text was rejected.

After 6 days of negotiations between the Russian Atomstroyexport and the Bulgarian National Energy Company (NEC), Russia has gained the upper hand in developing nuclear power in Bulgaria. The main question in the negotiations was concerning the new nuclear power plant being built at Belene, and was supposed to end in a freezing of the project for two months, according to Boiko Borisov, Bulgaria’s Prime Minister. Instead, an agreement has been signed, committing Bulgaria to take a final decision on the costs of Belene within two months and effectively decide the fate of the power plant. This was done without an answer to the questions on safety and financial effectiveness which Bulgaria’s Minister for Economic, Energy and Tourism, Traicho Traikov, had posed to the Russian side.

Only hours after NEC announced that it had signed the agreement, Mr. Traikov gave a press conference where he stated that Krasimir Parvanov, the head of NEC and leading negotiator, had been removed from his post. The reason for the decision was that Mr. Parvanov had overstepped his mandate in the negotiations by committing Bulgaria to a final decision on Belene. Mr. Traikov further stated that “the influence of Russia in Bulgaria is sometimes greater than the ability of individuals who have been entrusted with protecting national interests, to do their job”.

In essence, the agreement signed is an annex to the contract between Atomstroyexport and NEC which states that, before the 1^st of July 2011, Bulgaria has to agree on a final contract for the construction and delivery of the reactors for the Belene nuclear power plant, whether clarification on the questions of reactor safety or investment have been cleared or not. This would also lead to Bulgaria having to invest 2 billion euro over the next two years, making the Belene project irreversible. Mr. Traikov has also stated that Mr. Parvanov was explicitly instructed not to sign such an agreement. The Bulgarian media are now calling his actions ‘a crime’ and the Russian negotiators ‘criminals’.

As a result of this fiasco, the opposition in Bulgaria’s Parliament has called on the government to answer for its actions. They have also claimed that Mr. Traikov is incompetent and have demanded that he resign. Furthermore, Onyan Minchev, a leading political scientist, has stated in front of the Dnevnik news agency that in any other country, such a debacle would lead to the government’s resignation.

On the one hand, there is a sigh of relief. Bulgaria’s new energy strategy, from January 2011, states that the government will fully support the development of nuclear power in the country and especially the construction of Belene. The agreement signed brings these promises into a definitive context. On the other hand, the way that the agreement was made is questionable. Martin Dimitrov, leader of the Union of Democratic Powers party, has stated that Mr. Purvanov either had personal incentives to sign, or he was under a lot of pressure from the Russians.

Realistically, the idea that a member state of the European Union can allow such a breach in its national policy from another country is appalling. Bulgaria’s energy market is already dominated by imports of oil and gas from the Russian Federation, and all operations of the nuclear power plant at Kozloduy depend on Russian fuel and waste management. Now, Moscow has gone one step further in putting Bulgaria into a choke-hold when it comes to energy.

On 4 April 2011, the 72 countries that are “Contracting Parties” to the Convention on Nuclear Safety (CNS), which meet every three years to consider the CNS’ implementation, gathered at the IAEA’s headquarters in Vienna for their fifth Review Meeting, announced the International Atomic Energy Agency via a press release.

The ten-day Conference, convening from 4 to 14 April 2011, discusses the country reports on nuclear safety that every Contracting Party is obliged to submit. All countries with operating nuclear power plants are among the CNS’ Contracting Parties.

Both IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano and Review Meeting President Li Ganjie of the Chinese National Nuclear Safety Administration addressed the opening session of the meeting.

In his opening remarks, Director General Amano noted that the Conference will discuss issues relating to safety management and safety culture, international cooperation and networking on emergency management, as well as considering additional topics arising from the Fukushima accident.

While the immediate priority is to overcome the crisis and stabilize the reactors, Director General Amano called upon the Review Meeting and the IAEA to begin the process of reflection and evaluation, since “the worries of millions of people throughout the world about whether nuclear energy is safe must be taken seriously.” He stated that “Rigorous adherence to the most robust international safety standards and full transparency, in good times and bad, are vital for restoring and maintaining public confidence in nuclear power.”

Background

The Convention, which entered into force on 24 October 1996, was designed to enhance nuclear safety. Its objectives are to achieve and maintain a high level of nuclear safety worldwide, to establish and maintain effective defenses in nuclear installations against potential radiological hazards, and to prevent accidents having radiological consequences.

The Convention on Nuclear Safety is an incentive instrument. It does not compel Parties to adhere to certain safety standards, but is, instead, based on their common interest to achieve higher levels of safety.

The IAEA is the depository for the Convention and its role is to provide the secretariat for the Review Meetings by convening, preparing and servicing these meetings, as well as transmitting relevant information to the Contracting Parties.

Excerpts from the opening speech of IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano

As of the end of 2010, more than 60 IAEA Member States had informed the Agency that they were considering introducing nuclear power programmes. Almost all of the 29 countries which already had such programmes planned to expand them.

In the light of the Fukushima Daiichi accident, some countries have announced reviews of their plans for nuclear power.

However, the basic drivers behind the interest in nuclear power have not changed as a result of Fukushima. These include rising global energy demand as well as concerns about climate change, volatile fossil fuel prices and energy security.

Nuclear power has contributed to expanding the supply of energy and has also reduced greenhouse gas and other emissions.

The IAEA will continue to work closely with both established users and newcomers to ensure that nuclear power is used efficiently, safely and securely, and without proliferation of nuclear weapons.

In the light of the Fukushima accident, we will redouble our efforts to help newcomer countries to put an effective nuclear safety infrastructure in place well before the first reactor starts up.

I encourage all newcomer countries to become Contracting Parties to the Convention on Nuclear Safety and other relevant conventions.

Established users of nuclear power, for their part, must ensure the highest level of nuclear safety and effective regulation.

On 4 April 2011, the 72 countries that are “Contracting Parties” to the Convention on Nuclear Safety (CNS), which meet every three years to consider the CNS’ implementation, gathered at the IAEA’s headquarters in Vienna for their fifth Review Meeting, announced the International Atomic Energy Agency via a press release.

The ten-day Conference, convening from 4 to 14 April 2011, discusses the country reports on nuclear safety that every Contracting Party is obliged to submit. All countries with operating nuclear power plants are among the CNS’ Contracting Parties.

Both IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano and Review Meeting President Li Ganjie of the Chinese National Nuclear Safety Administration addressed the opening session of the meeting.

In his opening remarks, Director General Amano noted that the Conference will discuss issues relating to safety management and safety culture, international cooperation and networking on emergency management, as well as considering additional topics arising from the Fukushima accident.

While the immediate priority is to overcome the crisis and stabilize the reactors, Director General Amano called upon the Review Meeting and the IAEA to begin the process of reflection and evaluation, since “the worries of millions of people throughout the world about whether nuclear energy is safe must be taken seriously.” He stated that “Rigorous adherence to the most robust international safety standards and full transparency, in good times and bad, are vital for restoring and maintaining public confidence in nuclear power.”

Background

The Convention, which entered into force on 24 October 1996, was designed to enhance nuclear safety. Its objectives are to achieve and maintain a high level of nuclear safety worldwide, to establish and maintain effective defenses in nuclear installations against potential radiological hazards, and to prevent accidents having radiological consequences.

The Convention on Nuclear Safety is an incentive instrument. It does not compel Parties to adhere to certain safety standards, but is, instead, based on their common interest to achieve higher levels of safety.

The IAEA is the depository for the Convention and its role is to provide the secretariat for the Review Meetings by convening, preparing and servicing these meetings, as well as transmitting relevant information to the Contracting Parties.

Excerpts from the opening speech of IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano

As of the end of 2010, more than 60 IAEA Member States had informed the Agency that they were considering introducing nuclear power programmes. Almost all of the 29 countries which already had such programmes planned to expand them.

In the light of the Fukushima Daiichi accident, some countries have announced reviews of their plans for nuclear power.

However, the basic drivers behind the interest in nuclear power have not changed as a result of Fukushima. These include rising global energy demand as well as concerns about climate change, volatile fossil fuel prices and energy security.

Nuclear power has contributed to expanding the supply of energy and has also reduced greenhouse gas and other emissions.

The IAEA will continue to work closely with both established users and newcomers to ensure that nuclear power is used efficiently, safely and securely, and without proliferation of nuclear weapons.

In the light of the Fukushima accident, we will redouble our efforts to help newcomer countries to put an effective nuclear safety infrastructure in place well before the first reactor starts up.

I encourage all newcomer countries to become Contracting Parties to the Convention on Nuclear Safety and other relevant conventions.

Established users of nuclear power, for their part, must ensure the highest level of nuclear safety and effective regulation.

A German deputy environment minister said the government would phase out all nuclear power in the country before 2020, taking a hard line stance that may not be reflective of the center-right coalition, reads Reuters.

“A decision has been taken to shut down eight plants before the end of this year and they definitely won’t be reactivated. And the remaining nine will be shut down by the end of the decade,” Juergen Becker told Reuters on Monday.

“Japan has shown that even if there is a miniscule occurrence, the residual risk is too high to justify the continuation of nuclear power (…) It is better to go for other energy services in a civilized country,” he said.

A phase out could cost the four big utility companies RWE, E.ON, EnBW and Vattenfall hundreds of millions of euros in lost profits every year.

Becker’s comments come as the country’s utility industry association BDEW said on Monday Germany became a net importer of power mainly from France, where state-owned utility EDF operates 58 reactors, including a notoriously old plant in Fessenheim directly on the German border.

Becker, one of the three deputy ministers, was speaking on the sidelines of a meeting of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in the United Arab Emirates.

NO DECISION YET?

Chancellor Angela Merkel has repeatedly emphasized that no decision has been made since her cabinet intends to analyze the reports of two separate government-appointed commissions, one of which held its first meeting on Monday in the Chancellery.

“All of these issues (resulting from a possible nuclear power phase out) should be discussed, weighted and quantified,” Merkel said on Monday before the meeting.

The “Ethics Commission for a Secure Energy Supply” under the leadership of former environment minister Klaus Toepfer and the president of the German Research Foundation DFG, Matthias Kleiner, is expected to present its findings at the end of May.

In an interview with the Financial Times Deutschland published on Monday, Kleiner warned it made little sense to shut down nuclear facilities in Germany only to then pay to import atomic energy from abroad.

“To only talk about an exit from nuclear energy is too simple,” he said, adding the commission’s mandate encompassed a long-term concept for a secure power supply.

“In the end we need to arrive at a national energy strategy that serves as a guideline for the coming decades and will be accepted by society as a whole,” he told the business daily.

According to Germany’s BDEW industry association, the country has been importing on balance 50 gigawatt hours (GWh) a day of power ever since the March 17 order by the government to shutter reactors amounting to a combined 7,000 megawatts (MW) of capacity.

Prior to this, a scenario typical of March had been in place, involving net exports of 70 to 150 GWh a day.

More on Germany and nuclear on the Reuters website.

Bulgaria’s current import dependency stands at 76% of final energy consumption – the bulk of which comes from Russia. This involves an almost total dependence on imports of gas, oil and nuclear fuel, whilst coal is an internal resource for the most part, with only 42% needing to be imported.

Taking this into consideration, Bulgaria’s recent announcement to increase supply for the domestic market though a local resource – coal – seems logical. A continued utilization of existing coal-fired power plants means that domestic resources remain a key element of energy generation. Furthermore, the development of domestic gasification will cause greater demand for natural gas. Current plans for the construction of compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) connections, as well as the establishment of ties with the Middle East and North Africa for fuel delivery, will result in a decreased dependence on Russia. Despite these efforts, and the extreme financial costs associated with them, import dependency will rise. At the same time, the idea to replace natural gas with atomic energy is not on the agenda at all.

Moreover, the Bulgaria’s energy strategy places a lot of emphasis on new technology. The idea to modernize existent coal-fired power plants has lingered in policy circles in the last decade, but in practice many installations are not fulfilling their planned re-constructions. Investment for the installation of fuel-gas desulfurization (FGD) systems has been difficult to obtain. The strategy outlines a plan to use the sale of surplus carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol to raise capital for such projects. However, this may prove difficult, since the current situation shows that there is very little demand for such credits, and many countries actually hold surpluses. This financial uncertainty brings in the question as to why the zero-emissions technology of nuclear power does not replace these highly polluting power plants.

Overall, nuclear power remains peripheral. In Bulgaria, nuclear fuel is imported from Russia and waste is then exported back. This makes nuclear power to be considered as imported, rather than locally produced. Currently, 35% of final electricity consumption is the result of two nuclear reactors. Hypothetically, the new plant at Belene could raise this to 71%. However, the path outlined in the new energy strategy shows the government’s plan to keep nuclear energy at its current levels in relation to other sources. Given that nuclear power produces zero-emissions, and that Bulgaria has experience with nuclear waste management, the question remains why nuclear capacity is not used for the domestic market in order to phase out the more polluting and inefficient energy sources, as well as decrease dependency on imports.

It must be noted here that the future of Bulgarian nuclear power remains uncertain. Sure, the energy strategy may support the construction of new capacity, but the government does not have the investment capability to do so on its own. Illustrative in this regard is the aforementioned Belene plant which has been in the project phase since 1981. A total abandonment of the project is seen as illogical, given that a lot of capital has up to now been invested. Finding investment for its construction has been a top priority in recent years, with Russia being the prime candidate. However, the current Bulgarian government wishes to reduce its dependence on Moscow; the search for an alternative financier therefore continues. At the same time, complete independence is impossible since the contractor in charge of planning and construction is the Russian company Atomstroyexport, which further complicates the situation. In light of these uncertainties, it is not at all clear whether Belene will ever receive enough financing to be built.

Furthermore, technical reports have stalled the initiation of the construction stage of Belene. Questions raised by the Bulgarian Agency for Nuclear Regulation (ANR) about its safety have set the project back numerous times. In a situation where the new nuclear power plant might have potentially malfunctioning safety systems which do not meet EU standards (as outlined in the EURATOM Treaty), it is even less certain whether the project will receive further funding and support.

At the same time, increasing the share of renewable energy is a key priority of all EU member states. Bulgaria has adopted legislation which makes it mandatory for energy companies to purchase electricity produced from renewable sources. Projects for the development of renewables also enjoy a simplified administrative procedure, making it easier for foreign investors to obtain permits for construction. However, the strategy forecasts that the greatest increase in renewable energy use will be in the electricity-generation sector, from the current 10.6% to 16.7% in 2020. Taking this plan into account, it becomes evident that the government seeks to increase electricity production from renewables in response to increases in demand. However, given that the cheapest electricity produced in Bulgaria currently comes from the nuclear power plant in Kozloduy and that the price of renewable energy is relatively high, the strategy clearly states that costs in terms of final consumption will rise. In the end, what this boils down to is the government planning to hand the bill over to consumers in order for cheaply-generated nuclear energy to be simply exported.

DG CLIMA's Metzger and Singer with WWF

Each country should perform a thorough control on nuclear for its citizens, merely because it is in its “courtyard”, EU Environment Commissioner Janez Potocnik stated at the European Journalism Centre’s seminar Climate Action in Budapest. “You want to be safe in your country, go through the EIA, respect the norms of monitoring of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and ensure maximum transparency”.

When a company Member State decides to build nuclear installations, it has to go through the Environmental Impact Assessment. Naturally, the state has to check if the installation is complying.

Every country decides on its own energy mix, commissioner Potocnik said. “Our common concern is safety”, he underlined just before the EU Environmental Council in Godollo, Hungary.

Absolute vagueness would characterize Commission’s approach on nukes. Furthermore, the strong pre-assumption is that governments are responsible and their territories are actually their “courtyards”. Corruption in the nuke field and weakness of EIAs as well as of control especially in Eastern Europe show a rather shy Commission that ignores the massive anti-nuke populace. The “courtyard”, many suggest, should be the whole EU.

Artur Runge-Metzger, Director for climate strategy and international negotiations,
DG CLIMA, European Commission: “there is something in Europe, which is a holy Grail, and it’s called the energy mix. So it is not the Commission to say you must do this or that, we can do analyses and give you the numbers on how nuclear was treated. We respect the national decisions that were taken.”

Reactions in Europe were very strong against nuclear following Fukushima. However, Metzger added, one could not change a whole Roadmap after a couple of days (a.n.: the Roadmap 2050 was published a few days before the earthquake in Japan). “Currently there is a continuous opposition such as the moratorium in Germany, but the question is if this is going to lead to change of policy in terms of the phase-out. The model for 2050 in Germany, for instance, has no nuclear. All governments decided it was a transitional technology that will be gradually phased-out, therefore in 2050 in Germany there will be no nuclear in the energy mix.”

In other countries is different. In Poland, for instance, there were taken decisions to build nuclear capacity so that will be reflected in the model of 2050. Italy also wants to go in the direction of nuclear. There is no assumption that France will phase-out nuclear, it is a well established policy.

“The Commission is not prescriptive on that, it is a decision taken nationally, if there will be a decision against it it will be respected,” closed Metzger.

On July 22nd, the EU will come forth with a new directive on nuclear energy, Potocnik announced. The new directive will focus on safety measures for workers and locals. Energy Commissioner’s Oettinger suggestion to run the stress tests for all nuclear plants in Europe will also be part of the new norm.

Even though nuclear energy is part of the mix for many Member States, there is no provision related to the “cleanliness” of nuke. It is still considered “Carbon zero”, while the carbon footprint for uranium or plutonium mining is disregarded. Nuclear waste disposal and mining sterile, land-use change an no-go areas can also be converted in GHG emissions, but the Roadmap is rather silent about.

Stephan Singer, Director of Global Energy Policy, WWF International, concludes in a more radical manner, stating that the costly prices for nukes, hidden or overt, as well as its literal unusefulness, are to be summarized in an old German revolutionary slogan from the 70s – rather long, rhymed and… in German. Nonetheless, it contains the words “teuer” and “Scheisse”.