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KOZLODUY, Bulgaria: Bulgaria on Sunday closed down two reactors at its sole nuclear power plant, meeting safety concerns ahead of its midnight entry into the European Union but sacrificing lucrative energy exports.
The decision to close the reactors at Kozloduy in the northwest of the country, was taken reluctantly but was part of the price of entry to the EU which, with the New Year's Day arrival of Romania and Bulgaria, will grow to 27 members.
Reactors three and four, each with a capacity of 440 megawatts (MW), were both taken off Bulgaria's energy grid by 9:49pm (1949 GMT).
Reporters had earlier watched as Mityo Hristozov, director of the central operations directorate of the national electric company, ordered the shutdown process to begin — not without a touch of bitterness.
“Every child in Bulgaria knows that the reactors are safe and everybody knows that their safety is better than that of 80 percent of the reactors in France,” Hristozov said.
That sentiment was echoed by one of the reactor operators, Racho Parvanov, who told national television that they “were in excellent condition and could have functioned for 15 years more.”
Stamen Stamenov, an electricity company engineer, said that shutting down the reactors was like “throwing away a piece of bread instead of eating.”
The cut-off slashes energy output to a level that will only meet domestic consumption, thus robbing Bulgaria — the main electricity supplier in the Balkans — of a valuable souce of export revenue.
“I do not rule out a lack of energy in the Balkans in the cold days of January,” Hristozov said.
He added that the reactors could be restarted — a possibility raised recently by Romanian Economy and Energy Minister Roumen Ovtcharov in the event of a serious regional energy shortfall.
Such a move would require EU permission.
Based on 1992 studies conducted by the G7 group of industrialised nations, the EU believes that reactors of the Kozloduy type cannot be modernised at a reasonable price and should be shut down due to security concerns.
An Alpha Research poll carried out last year said that 75.4 percent of Bulgarians opposed the closure, which follows the shutdown of the two oldest reactors at Kozloduy in 2002 — also a result of EU membership negotiations.
Two more modern reactors, each producing 1,000 MW, will be kept running.
Reactors three and four had produced energy that was the cheapest in the Balkans as they have been operating since 1980-82 and their initial cost had been paid off, according to plant's production director Kiril Nikolov, who predicted energy prices from Kozloduy would rise by 19 percent in 2007.
The EU is due to pay Sofia 550 million euros (725 million dollars) to make up for the closure of the four reactors.
Nikolov said however that “it is ridiculous to talk of compensation”, since the plant has been stripped of production capacity worth three to four billion euros.
Bulgaria has signed a deal with the Russian company Atomstroyexport, whose subcontractors are Areva and Siemens, to build a second nuclear plant with a 2000 MW capacity, due to enter service around 2012.
