Poland Supports Nuclear Bill

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Poland has cleared the way for building new nuclear power plants following the passing of the second of two bills by the country's parliament.

Like the U.K., the country remains undeterred in its support for nuclear energy despite the decision of neighbouring European countries to drop nuclear power, after the disastrous events in March at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan.

The lower house, the Sejm, has accepted amendments to the bill put forward by the Senate and clears the way for construction to get under way in the coming year. The bill sets out the conditions for constructing and investing in the new plants. The country aims to build two nuclear power plants, each with a generating capacity of 3,000 megawatts (MW), with the first due to be commissioned by 2021. In May, Polish politicians voted overwhelmingly in favour of the nuclear bill. For additional information, see May 19, 2011, article - Poland Pushes Through Nuclear Changes.

The combined projects, which will be overseen by the state-owned Polska Grupa Energetyczna (PGE) (Warsaw, Poland), will cost an estimated €20 billion ($28.4 billion). PGE is expected to choose a reactor design by September. To date, the company has signed memorandums of understanding with Westinghouse Electric Company LLC (Monroeville, Pennsylvania), Electricite de France (EPA:EDF) (EDF) (Paris, France) and GE-Hitachi Energy Incorporated (Wilmington, North Carolina).

"We are determined to realise our nuclear power programme as it was decided in mid-2009," Hanna Trojanowska, nuclear power advisor to the government, told the press. "We are aware that many people opposed to nuclear power are trying to use [Fukushima] to call for changes in the European Union's energy policy and Europe is vacillating between the urgent need to mitigate global warming on the one hand and nuclear phobia on the other."

Poland is Europe's largest user of coal-fired power and it generates 90% of the country's electricity. The result is high CO2 emissions, and Poland is faced with stringent European Union targets to reduce those emissions by 2020. The country aims to use nuclear power, natural gas-fired plants and carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to help reduce coal's role in the fuel mix to less than 60% by 2030. The government outlined its nuclear goals in 2009. For additional information, see August 18, 2009, article - Poland Outlines Nuclear Roadmap.

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