“Everybody is talking about Bulgaria becoming the energy centre of the Balkans, but nobody says what price we must pay.”
 – Ilian Iliev, Chairman of the Public Environmental Centre for sustainable Development

Labels being banded about such as that of ‘energy centre of the Balkans’ place Bulgaria under a specific set of pressures, problems and dilemmas in relation to the energy question, which is itself inextricably bound with the awkward bedfellows of economics and the environment. Add to this demands to be met in order to achieve EU accession, a newly liberalising market, lack of transparency- indeed, some would argue, a penchant for deals of a rather opaque nature, and current hikes in gas and electricity prices, and the energy question for Bulgaria appears more the insoluble energy equation, akin to some fiendish punishment handed out by a sadistic physics teacher. LUCY COOPER  examines the environmental-nuclear debate in the Bulgarian Energy Question.

“IF history is a river, we have reached the white water” – John Ritch, Director General, the World Nuclear association.

The world can no longer escape from the fact of global warming, or climate change, as seems to be the current catchall phrase to apply to the process whereby a growing global population needs a larger supply of power to sustain itself, polluting the atmosphere in the process. The consequences are evident and generally well-documented, such as the melting of the polar ice caps, and the “freak” weather conditions being experienced around the globe.

But despite the warnings of scientists and environmentalists, many of us have difficulty believing that the day after tomorrow is just that. One prominent environmental scientist refers to the heatwave in Europe two years ago in which 20 000 people died, describing this as the “first real bad event of global warming”, but one which was picked up on by the media “only as a story about the wickedness of the French in not looking after their old people.”

However, one has only to look around to see the symptoms on a local level. Bulgaria is still suffering the aftermath of devastating floods experienced over the past few months. In the capital Sofia, roads not built for such a volume of vehicles are congested in a daily gridlock, in which rush hour now eats into an increasing proportion of the day. As oil supplies decrease, petrol prices rise; always relatively expensive compared to the cost of living, they have doubled here in the past year. And still the ever diminishing supply of oil is sucked in and spat out.

Globally, the energy question of how to satisfy demand with environmentally sound methods, is complex enough. The Balkan energy question requires its own consideration.

The nuclear debate

In a society in which concepts are constantly re-cycled – “black is the new black” – is orange the new green, nuclear power the new clean energy?

This was essentially the argument put forward by the World Nuclear Association (WNA), who emphasised the need for a “nuclear renaissance” at the International Ministerial Conference, Nuclear power for the 21st century, in Paris earlier this year.

Nuclear renaissance
Nuclear power, unlikely hero...?

The issue of nuclear power is key to the energy question in Bulgaria as it, together with fossil fuels, represents approximately 96 per cent of Bulgaria’s primary energy supply. (See figure one above).

Currently, Bulgaria has one working nuclear power plant, which is located in Kozlodui on the Danube River in northern Bulgaria. Kozlodui NPP produced about 40 per cent of the nation’s electricity last year.

In 1999, the Government signed a Merorandum of Understanding, as a prelude to EU accession talks, agreeing to shut down the first two units of the plant by 2002 as part of its EU entry conditions. Units three and four are to be decommissioned in 2007, but units five and six are to continue to operate and at present hold a licence until 2009.

However, there is some dispute over the EU’s motives for demanding the closure of these units. The initial decision was made based on poor safety standards at the plant, but since then an extensive programme of safety upgrades has been implemented, with the result that the 2002 International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) Report concluded that the plant was in compliance with safety standards. In a letter dated October 1 2002, Members of the European Parliament called upon the European Council and the European Commission to “critically re-examine its requirement for early closure of Kozlodui units three and four as part of the entry conditions for the accession of Bulgaria.” These calls were rejected. However, plans to complete the construction of a nuclear power plant at Belene, near Pleven, have recently been given the go ahead.

With nuclear power playing such a large role in Bulgaria’s energy production, the approach taken toward this controversial method of generating power is important.

In the presentation by WNA Director General John Ritch, the association stated that “anti-nuclear convictions can still be found:

In the mythologies that motivate many environmental groups

In the assumptions of environmental journalists and bureaucrats

In the rhetoric of some small countries like Denmark and Austria that are not inhibited by the hypocrisy of importing nuclear electricity and,

In the case of Germany, in the declaratory policy of a major country where a growing coalition is temporarily beholden to a small minority party.”

However, they believed that  “all of these reactionary forces” were receding under “the onslaught of facts that are too strong to be forever distorted or denied.” And that, “ All around the world, old-school anti-nuclear environmentalism is being eclipsed by a new realism that recognizes nuclear energy’s essential virtue: its capacity to deliver cleanly generated power safely, reliably, and on a massive scale.”

The WNA proposed nuclear energy as the unlikely hero in the “clean energy revolution our world so desperately needs.” This is a proposal that has been echoed from perhaps equally unlikely quarters, by Professor James Lovelock, who has himself been described as one of the “greatest heroes” of the environmental movement.

The 84-year-old scientist, who achieved fame as the author of the Gaia Hypothesis – the theory that Earth keeps itself fit for life by the actions of living things themselves – was in a select group of scientists who gave an initial briefing on climate change to the Thatcher Cabinet at 10 Downing Street in 1989. Lovelock recently entreated his friends in the Green movement to “drop their wrongheaded objection to nuclear energy,” arguing that “opposition to nuclear energy is based on irrational fear and Hollywood-style fiction, the Green lobbies and the media.”  He says these fears are unjustified, and that nuclear energy from its start in 1952 has proved to be the safest of all energy sources.

“We must stop fretting over the minute statistical risks of cancer from chemicals or radiation,” says Lovelock. “ Nearly one third of us will die from cancer anyway, mainly because we breathe air laden with that all pervasive carcinogen, oxygen. If we fail to concentrate our minds on the real danger, which is global warming, we may die even sooner.”

The main thrust of the argument from the pro-nuclear camp is that, with an increasing global population to provide energy for, and accelerating global warming, renewable energy sources such as wind, tide and water power, simply cannot provide enough energy, or in time. According to the pro-nuclear lobby, the only immediately available source of energy that does not cause global warming is nuclear energy.

The WNA blames a preoccupation with “politically correct renewables” as leading to a situation in which, “the IAEA stands isolated and alone in working to promote the peaceful uses of nuclear energy,” stating that “while an unprecedented global crisis intensifies, others fiddle in a safe cocoon of political correctness.”

So, according to the pro-nuclear camp, Bulgaria scores points for doing its bit for the Nuclear Renaissance. So, what do the ‘old-school’ environmentalists themselves have to say from the confines of their politically correct cocoon?

Nuclear cull ...or dirty villain of the energy revolution?

Top of the ‘old school’ class has to be Greenpecace. They define the energy question in terms of “the choice we currently face to continue our dependence on fossil fuels and nuclear power or switch to renewables and energy efficiency, the only sustainable energy system that will enable us to stop climate change and remove the radioactive threat for good.”

Not to be taken in by the pro-nulclearists’ appropriation of their rhetoric, Greenpeace accuse the nuclear industry of “trying to present itself as the solution to climate change in a massive green-washing drive.” The environmentalists remain firm in their stand that “every part of the nuclear cycle has unacceptable risks, from the mining of uranium, to the production of energy, to the unsolved problem of safely transporting and storing radioactive waste,” arguing that “to replace one environmental catastrophe, polluting fossil fuel power, with another environmental disaster, nuclear energy is clearly not the answer.”

In response to Lovelock’s call to his fellow Greens to drop their “wrongheaded objection” to nuclear energy, Steven Tisdale, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said, “Lovelock is right to demand a drastic response to climate change. He’s right to question previous assumptions. But he’s wrong to think nuclear power is any part of the answer. Nuclear creates enormous problems, waste we don’t know what to do with; radioactive emissions; unavoidable risk of accident and terrorist attack.”

The environmental group recently embarked on the Energy Revolution Tour 2005, as part of its world-wide campaign to “fight climate change and the dangers of nuclear power.”  Greenpeace’s vessel Anna sailed the Danube to promote their cause, and brought the group to Bulgaria where they paid visits to both Kozlodui NPP and the proposed Belene NPP. The Greenpeace demands during the tour were:

• A halt to further investments in nuclear projects. A halt to the Belene NPP project;

• An energy policy that focuses on the development of energy efficiency, renewable energy, a short term phasing out of nuclear power and in the long term a phasing out of fossil fuel use;

• Development of legal and market instruments to promote energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy;

• A halt to intimidation of supporters of an alternative energy policy and an end to manipulation of planning procedures for large energy projects; respect for democratic human rights: Greenpeace strongly condemns last week’s attempted manslaughter on Goldman Prize winning Bulgarian anti-nuclear activist Albena Simeonova in Ljubenovo in the Pleven Region.

BeleNE?

The nuclear debate as played out in Bulgaria is brought into sharp focus in the current disputes surrounding the construction of Belene NPP. Issues concerning the environment, the economy, transparency of the Government, and freedom of information are drawn together in the controversy surrounding this plant.

Construction of the plant originally started in the late 1980s, but was halted due to environmental protests and lack of funds. On April 8 this year, the Bulgarian Minister Miroslav Sevlievski announced that the Bulgarian Government had approved construction of the plant. The construction, involving two 1000 MW reactors is estimated to cost 2.5 bn euro.

The resumption of construction has prompted protests and a coalition of environmental groups has formed the BeleNE NPP! (No Belene NPP!) group.

Albena Simeonova, the anti-nuclear activist referred to by Greenpeace, is a member of the coalition. An organic farmer, whose farm lies within 30km of the planned Belene plant, she was one of the first people, along with Bankwatch members in Bulgaria, to point to the problems they believed the project would create.

“Already in the early 1990s it was clear that you could not build a nuclear power station in a seismically active area like we have in this part of Bulgaria. But, on top of that, there are so many alternatives!” says Simeonova, (cited on the Belene website). “My country is one of the least energy efficient countries in Europe, and it has so much to offer in terms of renewable energy. But short-sighted political and financial interests govern our energy policy. As their arguments are weak and prone to fail, obviously mafia style practices are required to push through projects like Belene.”

One of the “mafia style” practices Simeonova refers to are death threats that she is alleged to have received concerning her opposition to the plant, in the form of anonymous phone calls and personal visits from men threatening to kill her if she did not stop her co-operation with Greenpeace and her resistance against Belene NPP.

Other concerns have centred around the transparency of the decision to recommence construction at Belene, and gaining access to information connected with the Environmental Assessment Report made on the site by independent experts. Petar Penchev, vice president of Bulgarian environmental group Ekoglasnost was denied access to documents on grounds of the personal data protection act. The group argues that the decision to complete the plant was taken before legally prescribed analyses, including an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), a socio-economic analysis and a strategy for dealing with radioactive waste had been made.

Arrested Development: Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy in the Balkans, a report by the Stability Pact Watch Group, a coalition of environmental NGOs from across the Balkan region, summarises the other main arguments lobbied against Belene:

1.There is no sufficient evidence of the need for new capacity; even if such new capacity is needed then other untapped alternatives can be exploited (such as utilizing renewable energy potential, efficient natural gas-, biomass-, or coal-fuelled co-generation, rehabilitating existing coal plants).

2.There are significant opportunities for decreasing energy consumption, as well as distribution and transmission losses.

3.A sound economic evaluation of the project is not available and there are no estimations of how competitive the price of electricity deriving from Belene NPP may turn out to be, especially in uncertain regional markets and after the liberalisation of the electricity markets. There is also no cost benefit analysis of the whole fuel cycle. If incorrect calculations are done, the project will be a huge burden to the state budget, the advancement of the electricity liberalisation and the economic development of the country as a whole. In addition, the realization of the project will make the country even more dependent on Russia for fuel imports and for the export of spent nuclear fuel.

4.The plans to include units five and six of Kozlodui NPP as a part of the new utility are a hidden form of privatization and may conceal the real costs of electricity generation from Belene units.

5.There is serious opposition from local communities which has not been considered. Chief among their concerns is the wisdom of commissioning a nuclear station in a seismically active region. 

So, minus points for Bulgaria in the eyes of the environmentalists for adding to the dangers of dirty nuclear power. But what’s the alternative?

‘Politically correct’ alternatives

Earth, air, fire and water are the heroes and heroines of the green-green, as opposed to the orange-green, clean energy revolution, but even these have their environmental as well as economic drawbacks. Bulgaria has good potential for wind power, but farms must not interfere with migratory routes for birds, likewise, a hydro-electric plant recently sparked debate for its construction in a nature reserve.

The use of natural gas -, biomass – and coal – fuelled generation of power are also listed as preferable to the generation of power by a second Bulgarian nuclear power plant.

Natural gas is a key part of the Ministry of Energy and Resources’s programme for reducing CO2 emissions in line with the Kyoto protocol. In its favour, burning natural gas releases only half as much CO2 as buring coal or oil, but, argues Lovelock, “unburnt gas is 25 times as potent a greenhouse gas as is CO2. Even a small leakage would neutralize the advantage of gas.”

Biomass, the burning of plant material, vegetation or agricultural waste as a fuel or energy source, has potential in Bulgaria, a country in which 90 per cent of the territory is arable land. However, biomass “could hasten our decline,” argues Lovelock, as “agriculture already uses too much of the land needed by the Earth to regulate its climate and chemistry. A car consumes 10 to 20 times as much CO2 as its driver; imagine the extra farmland required to feed the appetite of cars.”

The rehabilitation of Bulgaria’s coal plants would have obvious environmental drawbacks. Currently, the coal industry provides jobs for about 40 000 people, which according to a 2004 study of the World Bank, should be reduced to 5000 in order for the industry at present to viable. This would have a high social impact as most of the mines are predominantly in poor regions of the country where mining is a major source of income. In this case, rehabilitation of the coal industry weighs up short-term positive social effects against negative long- term environmental effects.

However, the EBRD study for Bulgaria states that, with correct training programmes in place, layoffs in traditional industries such as coal mining could be compensated for by the creation of jobs in the renewable energy sector, that is if investment can be attracted into this sector in the first place.

Questions remain

The Ministry of Environment and Resources, in their Environmentally Friendly Energy, The Road to Europe report, illustrate the inherent contradictions involved in trying to find a solution to the energy question.

One page brightly states: “Development and implementation of a strategy for cost efficient and reliable energy supply with consideration for environmental protection requirements is a fundamental prerequisite for achievement of the national objectives – significant and sustainable economic growth and overcoming of poverty.”

It is accompanied by a picture of a pylon against the setting sun.

The next page states: “There is, however, no form of converting primary energy into electricity without any adverse effect on the environment.” 

It is accompanied by a foreboding picture of a nuclear power station billowing smoke into the dark.