EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Restarting old nuclear reactors, sharing gas stocks and calling an EU-Russia-Ukraine summit have emerged as potential EU reactions to the gas crisis, as severe supply cuts hit EU consumers and industry. Twelve thousand homes in Varna, Bulgaria were left without central heating as snow fell on Tuesday (6 January), with Bulgarian fertiliser producers Neochim and Agropolychim forced to halt production after Russian gas to the country stopped flowing through Ukraine in the small hours. A Naftogaz plant - Ukraine and Russia's reputations have suffered Gas supplies to Greece, Austria, Romania, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia fell by 70 percent to 100 percent, with Slovakia - which imports all of its gas from Russia - expected to declare a state of emergency at midnight. France, Germany, Poland and Hungary also suffered serious disruptions. Poland reduced gas deliveries to industrial plants and Germany's energy champion - E.ON Ruhrgas - warned the company's "possibilities [of functioning normally] will reach their limits" if the problem drags out.
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Restarting old nuclear reactors, sharing gas stocks and calling an EU-Russia-Ukraine summit have emerged as potential EU reactions to the gas crisis, as severe supply cuts hit EU consumers and industry.
Twelve thousand homes in Varna, Bulgaria were left without central heating as snow fell on Tuesday (6 January), with Bulgarian fertiliser producers Neochim and Agropolychim forced to halt production after Russian gas to the country stopped flowing through Ukraine in the small hours.
A Naftogaz plant - Ukraine and Russia's reputations have suffered
Gas supplies to Greece, Austria, Romania, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia fell by 70 percent to 100 percent, with Slovakia - which imports all of its gas from Russia - expected to declare a state of emergency at midnight.
France, Germany, Poland and Hungary also suffered serious disruptions. Poland reduced gas deliveries to industrial plants and Germany's energy champion - E.ON Ruhrgas - warned the company's "possibilities [of functioning normally] will reach their limits" if the problem drags out.
IIRC, that was indeed done and the plant got a pass from EU inspectors but had to be shut down anyway for political reasons. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
The promise of EU accession accompanied by the offer of EUR 200 million from the EC led to Kozloduy 1 & 2 being closed on 31 December 2002. Shutdown dates for units 3 & 4, were agreed as 2006 and the total compensation raised to EUR 550 million. However it was argued that Units 3 and 4 achieved levels of safety comparable with reactors of similar age in Western Europe. In 2002 the Bulgarian parliament decided almost unanimously that these units would not be closed down until after Bulgaria had gained EU membership, despite the EU's insistence that they close in 2006, prior to the country's admission. An IAEA mission reported very favourably in July 2002. Then in 2003, after a 2-week scrutiny by 18 international inspectors, the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) reported that units 3 & 4 met all necessary international standards for safe operation. This confirmed the earlier IAEA report. WANO said that after more than a decade of safety upgrades on units 3 & 4 in line with IAEA recommendations: "operational, seismic and design safety at Kozloduy now corresponds to the level of improvements seen at plants of similar vintage elsewhere. Many of the safety measures adopted for these plants in the design, operation and seismic areas exceeded those that were foreseen." The Bulgarian government then hoped to renegotiate the agreed 2006 shutdown and gain a reprieve until the licences expire (2011 & 2013), giving a 30-year operating life. The report of a late 2003 EU peer review supported the political initiative. However, despite a 2005 opinion poll showing 75% support for keeping the two reactors running, the government finally ordered them to be shut down at the end of December 2006. Bulgaria joined the EU on 1 January 2007. In January 2007 WANO declared that "no technical reasons exist for the early closure of units 3 & 4."Electricity shortages in the Balkan area have become acute since early in 2007. Apparently the two reactors could be brought back into operation in six months. In May 2008 the independent consultancy Energy Institute of Bulgaria said that the total losses from early closure of all four Kozloduy units amounted to EUR 12.3 billion, while EU compensation amounted to only EUR 580 million, with a further 500 million possible. The total includes EUR 3.9 billion in direct costs to the state budget and state-owned companies, EUR 6.8 billion in indirect costs for environmental damage from fossil plants and emissions trading, and EUR 1.4 billion for construction of new generating capacity to replace the four VVER-440s.
However it was argued that Units 3 and 4 achieved levels of safety comparable with reactors of similar age in Western Europe. In 2002 the Bulgarian parliament decided almost unanimously that these units would not be closed down until after Bulgaria had gained EU membership, despite the EU's insistence that they close in 2006, prior to the country's admission. An IAEA mission reported very favourably in July 2002.
Then in 2003, after a 2-week scrutiny by 18 international inspectors, the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) reported that units 3 & 4 met all necessary international standards for safe operation. This confirmed the earlier IAEA report. WANO said that after more than a decade of safety upgrades on units 3 & 4 in line with IAEA recommendations: "operational, seismic and design safety at Kozloduy now corresponds to the level of improvements seen at plants of similar vintage elsewhere. Many of the safety measures adopted for these plants in the design, operation and seismic areas exceeded those that were foreseen."
The Bulgarian government then hoped to renegotiate the agreed 2006 shutdown and gain a reprieve until the licences expire (2011 & 2013), giving a 30-year operating life. The report of a late 2003 EU peer review supported the political initiative.
However, despite a 2005 opinion poll showing 75% support for keeping the two reactors running, the government finally ordered them to be shut down at the end of December 2006. Bulgaria joined the EU on 1 January 2007.
In January 2007 WANO declared that "no technical reasons exist for the early closure of units 3 & 4."Electricity shortages in the Balkan area have become acute since early in 2007. Apparently the two reactors could be brought back into operation in six months.
In May 2008 the independent consultancy Energy Institute of Bulgaria said that the total losses from early closure of all four Kozloduy units amounted to EUR 12.3 billion, while EU compensation amounted to only EUR 580 million, with a further 500 million possible. The total includes EUR 3.9 billion in direct costs to the state budget and state-owned companies, EUR 6.8 billion in indirect costs for environmental damage from fossil plants and emissions trading, and EUR 1.4 billion for construction of new generating capacity to replace the four VVER-440s.
And each sophomoric column centimeter that this is getting in the MediaForTheManipulated, it is all the fewer centimeters which need be spent on the complete blockade of all gas and all medical supplies and all paper for school kids and food and...and...or...or...which hasn't gotten into Gaza for over 6 weeks, if not longer.
Blockade....all living necessities...oops~! some few hundred para-military types lob a few rockets over the wall in retaliation and suddenly such starvation of hundreds of thousands of people is JustifiedForTheWorld..."Never Again", the motto that replaces "Arbeit macht frei" on the Gaza Ghetto Gates...So much easier to ignore the single movie thriller re-enactment of Guernica and Warsaw if the Ukraine and Russia do a previously well practiced minuet as a distraction for the world's press corp. Never underestimate their intelligence, always underestimate their knowledge.
Frank Delaney ~ Ireland
