BALKANS: Nuclear Energy Needed, But Not Welcome

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Feb 17 2006 (IPS) - The energy crisis brought on by reduced deliveries of Russian gas have led to a new debate on building nuclear power plants.

The biggest of the countries of former Yugoslavia, Croatia and Serbia, have growing energy demands due to their increasing industrial and household consumption, but they also have strong anti-nuclear lobbies.

Most people also oppose nuclear power, fearing accidents and environmental damage, whatever the possible benefits and lower electricity prices.

But Croatia plans to build at least one nuclear power plant by 2015. “It is the Kyoto Protocol on reducing damaging transmission into the atmosphere that obliges us to close down the old (thermal) plants, but also the strategy of the European Union (EU) that stimulates alternative electricity production,” head of the Croatian Energy Institute Goran Granic told local media. Croatia is expected to join the EU by the end of the decade.

One proposed site is on the banks of the Danube in Erdut in eastern Croatia, where the river marks the natural border with Serbia. Another is a site between Ivanic Grad and Dugo Selo on the river Sava, only 30 km east of capital Zagreb.

Both locations were mentioned 20 years ago as possible sites when Yugoslavia was still a single country. It had then one nuclear power plant at Krsko, at the border of Slovenia and Croatia, and planned to build several more. Krsko became operational in the early 1980s, with American equipment.

But plans to build nuclear plants at these sites were never carried out because of problems at Krsko, where reactors were closed from time to time due to technical problems. Fears grew further after the nuclear accident at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine 20 years ago.

Now new opposition has arisen. “Nuclear power plants destroy eco-systems, demand large amounts of water, and cause pollution,” Ljiljanka Mitos, an activist from Osijek town close to the Erdut site told IPS.

“The Danube river would be in danger, and it is protected by numerous European conventions due to its importance,” Mitos said. The Danube, one of the longest and most important European rivers, winds through Croatia and Serbia on way to the Black Sea in Romania.

“There is also a sensitive political thing,” Mitos said. “Erdut is on the border with Serbia, and the two countries still have a lot to do to smooth their relations.”

The two nations fought a bitter war in the early 1990s. Normalisation of relations is under way, but slowly.

There seems to be little concern over energy sources in Serbia. A recent United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) study titled ‘Stuck in the Past’ urged quick expansion of energy resources, but little was done to tackle the issue.

“We came to the dramatic conclusion that neither the people nor the politicians in Serbia are aware how important energy is,” sociologist Srecko Mihajlovic, who was the project team leader for the study told IPS. “No one seems to be aware that energy makes the basis for quality of life, not only now, but also for generations to come.”

Mihajlovic said such views have their origins in the myth that Serbia’s numerous hydro and thermal plants produce more than enough energy for its needs. Serbia has coal mines, while oil is regarded as something that comes naturally from abroad.