An error of seismic proportions

The European commission will be risking Bulgarian lives if it gives the go-ahead to build nuclear reactors in an earthquake zone.
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You don't have to be a Nobel prize winner to realise that building a nuclear power plant in an earthquake zone is a really dangerous thing to do. July's events in Kashiwazaki, Japan, at the world's largest nuclear plant, have unfortunately shown that nuclear energy and seismic fault lines do not mix. It is therefore all the more surprising that the European commission seems poised to issue a positive opinion on my country's newest nuclear scheme, and may even provide money for it.

In the early 1980s, Bulgaria's communist regime set out to build a nuclear power plant in the north of the country, near the town of Belene. From the outset controversy surrounded the plans and in 1983 even the Soviet planners suggested that the site should be withdrawn due to its high seismic risks. There had, after all, been a large earthquake in the region in 1977 and more than 120 people were killed just 14km from the planned nuclear site. But the hard-line Bulgarian regime was not to be deterred and in 1985 began construction of two nuclear reactors in Belene.

With the democratic uprising in 1989, however, the communist regime fell and so did the plans to finish Belene. After the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences undertook a 421-page study in 1990 that warned against the consequences of building a nuclear plant in a seismically active area, the first democratically elected Bulgarian government scrapped the project. The people living in the Belene area and across the border in Romania celebrated - the prospect of living with a second Chernobyl on our doorsteps had disappeared.

Now, 17 years on, our fears have returned. Our current government wants to finish the mad- scientist scheme that the communists began. It has awarded a contract for the construction of Belene to the Russian company Atomstroyexport to build two reactors of a type that has never yet been constructed anywhere else in the world. For the price of 7bn euros, Bulgaria is thus to have the privilege of becoming a testing ground for the Russian nuclear industry.

And, according to our government, why should a poor country spend small amounts of money on safe technologies like renewables or energy efficiency, if it can spend a whole lot of money on a plant that would release as much radioactivity as 100 Hiroshima bombs in the case of an accident?

But where will the money come from to finance this megalomaniac scheme? The original plan was to tap into the coffers of major commercial banks in Germany and Italy. However, after tens of thousands of German citizens wrote to their banks and environmental organisations staged protests in Italy, the banks declared that they would not help finance the risky new reactors. Other banks from Switzerland and the US also refused to step in.

In the meantime Bulgaria had become a member of the European Union, so Brussels was asked for help. When asking for nuclear assistance, the first step is to notify the European commission, which then draws up an official "Point of View". If the commission gives the project a positive assessment, loans - derived from EU taxpayers' money - from the EU lending agencies Euratom and the European Investment Bank are pretty much assured.

The key Brussels player in this is the energy commissioner, Andris Piebalgs. He has previously stressed the importance of transparency on issues as controversial as new nuclear power plants. However, in spite of the inconsistencies, incompetence and corruption that have dogged the Belene project for years, the commission has kept its consultations worryingly close to its chest.

This is all the more remarkable given that, at the end of August, Green MEP Rebecca Harms discovered that the commission was not in possession of the environmental impact documentation for the project. This vital documentation is generally regarded to be of disgracefully poor quality and it remains unclear why the commission has not insisted on receiving the documentation and asking for improvements.

Yet last week, Bulgarian newspapers reported that the commission is due to give a positive response on Belene probably this week. Along with long-time opponents to the project, I am dismayed at this news. Belene would be the first case where the commission condones the construction of new Russian reactors on EU territory. The impacts of such a decision go far beyond Bulgaria. It would more or less give a green light to the Russian nuclear industry to push ahead their plans for similar reactors in Serbia, Slovenia, Slovakia and Hungary. All of this will make Europe a much less safe place.

If the commission wants to secure the health and safety of European citizens, it should not issue a positive opinion on a project which Soviet scientists, former Bulgarian governments and numerous commercial banks have all assessed as negative. While Chernobyl happened outside of the EU, Belene would use European taxpayers' money for a project that will put large numbers of people in Bulgaria and neighbouring countries at risk.

My plea to the commission is: Use common sense. Don't play Russian roulette. Don't support the construction of nuclear reactors in an earthquake zone.

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