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Baltic Leaders Back New Nuclear Plant But Poland Hesitates
Vilnius, (AFP) Nov 06, 2006 The leaders of the three Baltic states on Monday reiterated their backing for a new nuclear power plant to be built in Lithuania, to replace the Chernobyl-type Ignalina plant. But the president of Poland balked at committing his country, which was invited in July to be part of the project. "I cannot make any commitments on behalf of Poland," Polish head of state Lech Kaczynski told a press briefing after a summit meeting with his counterparts from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Building a new nuclear plant in Lithuania to replace the ageing Ignalina plant would cost 2.5 to 4.0 euros (3.15 to 5.0 billion dollars), a feasibility study published last month showed. The project would enable energy to be produced more cheaply than in coal-, oil- or gas-fired power stations and would make the Baltic states less dependent on energy resources in other countries, notably Russia, the head of Lithuania's state-owned Lietuvos Energija, Rimantas Juozaitis, has said. Lithuania and its Baltic neighbours are heavily dependent on supplies of oil and gas from Russia, which has been steadily increasing the prices at which it sells fuel to the former Soviet republics. Dependence on energy from the east is set to increase even more in 2009, when Lithuania is set to close the Soviet-era Ignalina nuclear plant. The European Union says the Ignalina is unsafe. Lithuania shut down one of two reactors at Ignalina in 2004 and has pledged to the EU, which the Baltic states and Poland joined in 2004, to close the plant completely in 2009. German energy giant E.ON has already expressed interest in the project to build a new nuclear plant, while France's Areva group, Canada's AECL and Mitsubishi of Japan have said they are ready to supply nuclear technologies for the new facility. After the Vilnius meeting on Monday, the four presidents issued a statement stressing "the importance of implementing joint energy projects to advance the integration of the regional Baltic energy market into the common EU market". The statement also called on Russia "to ratify the Energy Charter Treaty as soon as possible". Lithuania and Poland announced in September that they are to create a joint company to link up their energy grids, a first step in giving the Baltic states better access to the European energy network. The meeting in Vilnius took place one month before the opening of Estlink, a direct undersea cable linking Estonia to Finland, which will be the first interconnection between the Baltic and Nordic electricity markets.
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IEA Sees Nuclear Power As Part Of Future Energy Solution
Paris (AFP) Nov 07, 2006Nuclear power can help reduce carbon dioxide emissions and provide reliable electricity in the future, but the technology must first win a battle for public opinion, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday. Nuclear power has two main advantages over rival energy sources, the IEA said, namely that it produces no greenhouse gas emissions and only requires uranium as a resource, which is found in abundance in stable, democratic countries. |
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