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Bulgarian leader urges EU to allow reactors' reopening
Sofia (AFP) Jan 27, 2008 Bulgaria's President Georgy Parvanov urged the European Commission Sunday to order a new peer review to reexamine safety at two shut reactors at its Kozloduy nuclear plant and allow for their reopening. "There is not a single survey proving the reactors are unsafe to operate," Parvanov said at a press conference marking the first year into his second mandate. "But we signed a treaty (for their closure) with the EU and we have been a member of the bloc for one year now. Our only chance to achieve the reopening of the two blocs is to make the EU reexamine their safety by demanding a new peer review," he added. Bulgaria agreed to close down two 440-megawatt reactors at its single nuclear power plant at Kozloduy in late 2006, to secure accession to the EU which considered them unsafe to operate. This left Sofia, which joined the 27-member bloc last year, with only two 1,000-megawatt facilities in operation, as Bulgaria had already shut down the plant's two oldest reactors in 2002. "If the (European) Commission decides that it does not have the capacity to conduct such a peer review and assigns the International Atomic Energy Agency (to do it), we will agree. We will accept the result of the review," Parvanov said. His call for reopening the two reactors was aired earlier this month by the country's energy minister Petar Dimitrov. The IAEA already conducted safety checks on the reactors on the eve of their closure and said it did not have any objections to their state of operation. But Brussels insisted the blocs should be closed after its own experts concluded that Soviet-built reactors of their type could not be modernised at a reasonable price. The reactors' closure ended Bulgaria's role as a major electricity exporter in the Balkans, drastically reducing its exports from eight billion kilowatt-hours in 2006 to 300 million kilowatt-hours in 2007. To compensate for the lost capacity, the government signed on January 18 a four-billion-euro (5.86-billion-dollar) contract with the Russian company Atomstroiexport and its subcontractors Areva and Siemens to build a new nuclear plant at Belene on the Danube. The first of the two 1,000-megawatt blocs at Belene is expected to start operating in 2013 and the second a year later. Related Links Nuclear Power News - Nuclear Science, Nuclear Technology Powering The World in the 21st Century at Energy-Daily.com
Indian PM hopes nuclear talks with IAEA will conclude soon
New Delhi (AFP) Jan 25, 2008Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Friday said talks with the UN's nuclear watchdog on a pact allowing New Delhi to buy nuclear power plants and technology will be soon completed. |
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