AUSTRIANS are celebrating what they hope will be the death of a plan to finish building two nuclear reactors at Mochovce in Slovakia, 180 kilometres from Vienna. Late last month Slovakia blocked a French-led plan to complete the Soviet-designed power plants, while it examined a rival bid from Russia and the Czech Republic. But the Austrians believe that this bid is untenable.
鈥淭hings have gone better than we hoped,鈥� says Manfred Heindler, director of the Austrian Energy Agency. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not final but it鈥檚 a first step.鈥� Phil Weller of the Austrian environmental group Global 2000 describes Slovakia鈥檚 indecision as good news. 鈥淭he credibility of the Slovaks has been seriously dented,鈥� he says.
Work at Mochovce was abandoned after the collapse of the Soviet Union because of a lack of cash. Over the past two years the power companies Electricit茅 de France, Bayernwerk of Germany and SEP of Slovakia have been drawing up a controversial plan to finish the reactors. Despite criticism from environmentalists, energy experts and the Austrian government, the consortium persuaded managers at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to lend it nearly 30 per cent of the DM1.4 billion (拢670 million) needed for the project.
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But at the end of March, just as the EBRD鈥檚 governors were about to approve the loan, Slovakia asked the bank to hold off while it studied a rival bid from the Czech company Skoda Praha and Russia鈥檚 atomic energy ministry Minatom. The timing of Slovakia鈥檚 move has left managers at the EBRD exasperated. 鈥淚n twenty years of professional life I鈥檝e never seen anything like it,鈥� says Thierry Baudon, deputy vice-president of the bank.
Critics argued that the French-led plan had safety and environmental failings, and that building gas-fired plants could be a cheaper option (This Week, 14 January). How the Eastern European bid will compare with the French plan is not yet known, but Baudon says it is significantly cheaper. 鈥淵ou can guess where the cost savings come from,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hey鈥檝e just been cutting corners.鈥�
As a condition of the EBRD loan, Slovakia would have been forced to raise electricity prices and close down an older nuclear reactor at Bohunice, close to the Austrian border. In Slovakia, both of these moves would be 鈥渆xpensive in political terms鈥�, says Baudon. 鈥淪omebody in government has had a change of heart.鈥�
If Slovakia chooses the cut-price deal, Austria鈥檚 opposition to the French plan could turn out to have been counterproductive. But Heindler dismisses this possibility arguing that the Eastern European bid is politically and economically untenable. SEP is virtually bankrupt, so it needs money from a third party which neither the Russians nor the Czechs can raise, he says.
Politically, the Slovaks are looking west, not east, says Heindler. They want to join the European Union, but finishing the plant in a way that the EU regards as unsafe 鈥渨ould be an offence against the people whose support they want鈥�.