Safety of atomic power plants 35 years after Chernobyl – What is preventing Serbia from building a power plant?

Thirty-five years ago, in 1986, at the Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Nuclear Power Plant, in the town of Pripyat in what is now Ukraine, then U.S.S.R, a malfunction happened at one of the reactors. The explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, as it was better known, released lethal radiation, which then spread throughout the northern hemisphere.

While the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster are still being accounted for, scientists and engineers are trying to suppress the doubts and the fears from nuclear energy through new technologies and the construction of safer and more secure nuclear power plants. It seems, however, that these doubts and fears are still deeply imbedded in people worldwide.

As an example of a positive approach to this type of energy, one can cite the United States, still topping the list when it comes to the number of reactors. While China is slowly, but surely gaining on the US, France is closing its oldest facilities, but, like other European countries, also building new ones, whereas Germany is an exception with its decision to close all its nuclear power facilities.

In Serbia, however, the situation has not changed since the times of the former Yugoslavia. To clarify, the construction of nuclear power plants was banned in 1989, as a reaction to Chernobyl.

In the document “Strategy of Development of Energy in Republic of Serbia until 2025 with Projections until 2030”, the Serbian Radiation and Nuclear Safety and Security Directorate (SRBATOM) says for our portal that, as for the possibilities of using nuclear power, for which the Law on the Ban on Construction of Nuclear Power Plants is still in effect, there is currently no regulatory and administrative framework that would regulate the construction and the operations of nuclear power plants.

– The Law on the Ban on Construction of Nuclear Power Plants does not set any deadline and it will remain valid until the National Assembly of Serbia adopts a law declaring it null and void – SRBATOM says.

They also point out that there are no scientists or other experts that would monitor the construction and the operations of such facilities, and the education of nuclear energy staff has been discontinued as well. The situation is similar in the administrative-regulatory and the scientific-expert sectors and also when it comes to the treatment of highly radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel, SRBATOM says.

– The possibility of construction of nuclear power plants should not be fully excluded, however, considering the environmental restrictions when it comes to the current production and the future needs – SRBATOM says for eKapija.

Energy experts in favor of construction of nuclear power plants

Nuclear power plants are a stable and reliable source of electrical energy. As they mostly do not depend on the weather conditions or the water levels at rivers and do not emit greenhouse gases, they are environmentally friendly in that sense, SRBATOM says for our portal.

Zoran Drace, a retired mechanical engineer, after 40 years of working in the nuclear industries of the former Yugoslavia, Canada and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), says for eKapija that any energy expert will support the idea of an “energy mix”, which, in an ideal case, consists of various energy facilities, that is, hydro, thermal and nuclear power plants and energy facilities using renewable energy sources.

According to our interviewee, a mix of various energy facilities results in the optimization of the electrical energy system and the optimal degree of the usage of the installed capacities for various settings, such as the base load, the peak load, or the day-night cycles, or the usage as energy storage (reversible hydro power plants).

– I therefore see no reason why Serbia would not consider the idea of the construction of nuclear power plants in the foreseeable future, considering the potential restrictions on the operations and the construction of coal-based thermal power plants (low-calorie lignite), currently the primary source of energy in the electrical energy system of Serbia, due to the emissions and the environmental impact – Drace says.

As the advantages of nuclear power plants, Drace cites the fact that around 11% of electrical energy in the world is currently produced in them, with the lowest operating costs of the production of electrical energy, high reliability and efficiency, low emissions and relatively small quantities of waste.

For a facility of 1,000 MW, he explains, only around 600 operators need to be trained at adequate training centers, which all nuclear power plant providers have. Adequate capacities in the regulatory body, science institutes, machine production and universities are also required.

– Since the preparation for the construction and the construction of a facility take 10 to 15 years on average, it is quite possible to have the necessary local resources with an adequate plan and investments. A good example is the Krsko nuclear power plant, which has been operating quite well for 40 years – Drace points out.

Lack of staff

One of the problems when it comes to the establishment of a nuclear system in Serbia is the lack of education of the necessary staff, SRBATOM says. The nuclear technology education program at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Belgrade was discontinued 30 years ago.

– It was due to the low interest of students, which was entirely logical, considering the employment perspectives as a consequence of the adoption of the Law on the Ban on Construction of Nuclear Power Plants – says SRBATOM.

A similar thing happened with the matching department at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Belgrade. The staff educated at the time (in the former Yugoslavia) are either retired or are close to retirement, so it would be a great challenge to re-establish this type of education, SRBATOM explains.

However, Drace says that there are great technical schools in Serbia, as well as a large number of experienced thermal power plant operators. As he points out, this is the primary source of the nuclear energy staff.

– To an extent, there is a local production of machines and electrical machines as equipment for thermal power plants. If we assume that this potential nuclear power plant would be built in cooperation with one of the few suppliers of such facilities in the world, I believe that the problem with the number of experts would not have to exist – he concludes.

What is a limiting factor when it comes to the construction of nuclear power plants, he points out, are high capital costs and risks related to delays in construction, which are more frequent in developed countries such as the USA, France or Finland than in, say, China or Belarus, where the construction deadlines are mostly met.

– The capital, the interest on the capital and long-term loan repayment periods, which often stretch to 25 years from the beginning of the exploitation, are a heavy burden on private investors and smaller power systems – Drace says.

– There’s an absurd example of a power plant in Finland, whose construction started in 2005, with a completion deadline in 2009, and which is still under construction, now slated for completion in 2022, with an increase in the total costs three times as high as the initial estimate. It is quite clear that such an experience would bankrupt most investors, that is, power organizations – he notes.

Therefore, he adds, to the end of reducing these risks, there’s increasingly more talk about the construction of lower-power nuclear plants, that is, modular facilities which come pre-fabricated to the construction site, ready to be installed, although it is quite certain that large centralized power systems are to continue building high-capacity facilities due to lower costs per unit of installed power.

Cooperation of Serbia and Russia “only on paper”

There were speculations three years ago that Serbia was to launch valuable investments in atomic energy with the help of Russia, when the two countries signed the Agreement on Peaceful Use of Nuclear Energy, which entails the construction of a nuclear center in Serbia.

Still, nothing has been done in this field so far.

The agreements were signed by the director general of the Russian state corporation ROSATOM, Alexey Likhachev, and the minister without a portfolio in charge of innovations and technological development of Serbia, Nenad Popovic.

We asked SRBATOM which phase the realization of the agreement was in and what the next plans were regarding nuclear energy.

– The directorate has been able to view the contents of the agreement, but there is no information about the dynamics of the realization of that cooperation – they told our portal.

Nuclear power plants increasingly safer

Can we rely on nuclear energy today? Our interviewee says yes. Drace says that nuclear energy experts have understood quite well the causes of the catastrophic nuclear accidents and learned from them.

– Chernobyl was a consequence of successive human errors in the exploitation of the facility, which could not happen today, with an intensive development of safety systems and operating procedures. The main cause of the Fukushima disaster is that the power manager (owner) of the facility had postponed the implementation of the recommendations made by the regulatory body, provided over five years before. The recommendation was to build a shield in case of a tsunami, which is exactly what happened, and to the end of cutting down operating costs. Today, in Japan, and I believe in the whole world, this is no longer possible, considering that the requirements for each reactor to be connected back to the network are strictly controlled – our interviewee points out.

Drace reminds that a relative majority of the 440 operating nuclear power plants was built in the 1970s and the 1980s and that many facilities have been operating successfully for over 40 years, and that the number of nuclear accidents is not increasing proportionally.

– The development of nuclear regulations has imposed numerous changes related to the safety systems of these older facilities. Today, in the field of nuclear energy, every reasonable effort to ensure the safety of their operations has been made. The design of each new generation of nuclear facilities includes new technical solutions for the safety and reliability of their operations – he explains.

He adds that the current generation of nuclear power plants, the so-called “generation 3”, ensures the keeping of control over a facility in case of a core meltdown in the reactor.

– The aim of the “generation 4”, toward which there are relatively intensive efforts, is to avoid the need for the existence of an evacuation zone in close proximity to the nuclear power plant, because the consequences of a potential disaster are limited to the facility itself and not to its surroundings. The conclusion follows that the current degree of safety is very high and that the future facilities will entirely eliminate the risk of catastrophic nuclear accidents – Drace emphasizes.

Most nuclear power plants in America, China getting closer

There are currently around 440 nuclear reactors in the world, in 31 countries, and around 50 are under construction, according to the data of SRBATOM.

Zoran Drace points out that, although the majority of the operating nuclear power plants are still in the USA (94), it seems that China is to surpass the USA in the near future thanks to its intensive program of the construction of power plants.

He notes that currently the biggest supplier of new nuclear facilities is ROSATOM, which builds in Russia, China, India, Bangladesh, Belarus, Hungary, Iran and probably Bulgaria, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

– Another large potential buyer is Saudi Arabia. In the European Union, new facilities are planned in France, Sweden, Finland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, perhaps also in Lithuania and Slovenia, and there’s also a construction program in Great Britain – Drace adds.

He reminds that there is a trend of closing old reactors, such as those in France and Belgium, but that there’s also a trend of extending the life cycle of existing nuclear reactors from 60 to 100 years, especially in the USA.

– The Germany is an exception in a way, due to its decision to close down all the nuclear power plants, although it hasn’t stopped importing cheap electrical energy from the Czech Republic, France and Slovakia – our interviewee says.

New nuclear reactors being built in the neighborhood as well

When it comes to Serbia’s neighbors, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary have nuclear power plants. Of the countries relatively close to Serbia, there are also nuclear power plants in Slovenia and Slovakia, SRBATOM says.

At the two reactors at the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant, Bulgaria produces close to 38% of its electrical energy, whereas Romania produces 19% of its power at the two reactors of the Cernavoda plant. At the four reactors at the Paks Nuclear Power Plant, Hungary produces 49% of its electrical energy.

With a single reactor at the Krsko plant, Slovenia supplies 37% of its needs for electrical energy, although it should be said that it owns one half of the power plant. The other half is owned by Croatia, whereas Slovakia produces 54% of its power at four reactors, according to SRBATOM’s data.

Drace says that, in Hungary, two power plants are being built, and the plan is to build another two, whereas the same number of power plants is expected in Romania. New power plants in Hungary and Bulgaria will feature Russian reactors, and, as he adds, a Canadian reactor might be used in Romania.

– In all three countries, the experiences with nuclear power plants are positive. I have not yet heard that there’s an opposition to the plans of the construction of those new nuclear power plants – Drace notes.

Sandra Petrovic

Agenija za zaštitu od jonizujućih zračenja i nuklearnu sigurnost Srbije

Serbian Radiation and Nuclear Safety and Security Directorate

SRBATOM

International Atomic Energy Agency

IAEA

ROSATOM

minister without a portfolio in charge of innovations and technological development

Chernobyl

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Nuclear Power Plant

krsko

Cernavoda

Nenad Popovic

Alexey Likhachev

Zoran Drace

Strategy of Development of Energy in Republic of Serbia until 2025 with Projections until 2030

nuclear power plants

construction of nuclear power plants

nuclear energy

Law on the Ban of Construction of Nuclear Power Plants

construction of nuclear power plants in Serbia

construction of a nuclear center in Serbia

Agreement on Peaceful Use of Nuclear Energy with Russia

Chernobyl Disaster

third generation of nuclear power plants

fourth generation of nuclear power plants