Bulgaria scraps plan for second nuclear plant
SOFIA, Bulgaria

Bulgaria has abandoned plans to build a second 2,000-megawatt nuclear power plant on the Danube River with Russian firm Atomstroyexport, a top official said Wednesday.

After a government meeting, Vladislav Goranov, Bulgaria's deputy finance minister said the nuclear power plant will not be built in the Danube town of Belene but a natural gas power plant would be built there instead. He did not elaborate....

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-03/D9TPFCO00.htm

> Goranov said one of the two 1,000-megawatt nuclear reactors already
> assembled by Rosatom subsidiary Atomstroyexport and originally meant
> for Belene will be placed in Bulgaria's sole nuclear power plant, Kozloduy,
> boosting its capacity to 3,000 megawatts.

Strategy decision: "Stick to a single basket and add another layer of eggs to it."



> the nuclear power plant will not be built in the Danube town of Belene
> but a natural gas power plant would be built there instead. He did not elaborate.

I bet he didn't ... and not only from the increase in CO2 emissions but from
the red-faces from their earlier position:

> Prime Minister Boiko Borisov's center-right government has repeatedly pledged
> to lessen Bulgaria's almost total dependence on Russian energy supplies.

Building yet another natural gas power plant isn't going to meet these
"repeated pledges" ... but at least the Russians will be happy with their increased
profits ... natural gas FTW ...

Even though the nuclear plant isn't built yet, I agree that it wold appear to result in a near term increase in CO2 emissions if all things were equal. But are they as equal as you're presuming? If lots of new, high quality reserves of uranium ore are not identified then the rate of depletion of the high quality uranium ore will proceed at a pace that would push the GHG emissions for the nuclear plant to levels at or above those of natural gas.

On the flip side, the natural gas plant will be guaranteed to produce more GHG emissions in the short term than the nuclear plant would, then again, the natural gas plant will be in operation for probably 8 years or so before the nuclear plant would come online, so what fuel will it be displacing during that time? I'd bet on coal, wouldn't you? So there will be substantial near term reductions in GHG and particulate emissions that should go into the ledger.

Then you have to consider the fact that natural gas dependency grows the opportunity for instillation of genuine, long term low carbon renewable technologies. Since it can cycle in a way that the nuclear plant cannot, the window for expansion of renewables and energy efficiency policies is opened with the gas plant, while it would be closed with the nuclear plant - a technology that is a widely recognized driver of increased energy consumption.

We can only speculate what the long term balance sheet will show, but I'm inclined to believe that the long term prospects for GHG emissions limitations and reductions are markedly better with the decision they've just taken.

> Then you have to consider the fact that natural gas dependency grows the opportunity
> for instillation of genuine, long term low carbon renewable technologies. Since it can
> cycle in a way that the nuclear plant cannot, the window for expansion of renewables
> and energy efficiency policies is opened with the gas plant, while it would be closed
> with the nuclear plant

My pessimistic side simply notes that there is no mention of renewables in that entire
article and the use of "a natural gas power plant would be built there instead" makes
me question whether in fact it would be "displacing coal" or merely supplementing it.



We can but hope that they do the right thing eventually.