Bulgaria to begin work on two reactors at Kozloduy nuclear site - Reuters
Bulgaria to begin work on two reactors at Kozloduy nuclear site | Reuters
Bulgaria to begin work on two reactors at Kozloduy nuclear site
A company logo of Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant is seen at the plant entrance, some 200 km (124 miles) north of Sofia, March 17, 2010. REUTERS/Oleg Popov/File Photo Acquire Licensing Rights
SOFIA, Oct 25 (Reuters) - Bulgaria has taken the first steps towards the construction of two additional reactors at its Kozloduy nuclear power plant, which will add combined capacity of 2,300 megawatts (MW), Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov said on Wednesday.
The energy ministry will begin selection of a contractor for the design, construction and commissioning of the seventh new power unit at the site, the government said in a statement, and simultaneously start procedures to build an eighth.
Construction of the seventh unit will be completed by 2033, and the project will be funded with 500 million leva ($270.7 million) in addition to previously allocated funding. The government is to begin negotiating new loans with financial institutions, it said.
Denkov said the eight bloc should be completed at a later stage. He called the decision to press ahead with the unit his cabinet's most important so far.
The Kozloduy facility, on which construction began in the 1970s, is Bulgaria's only nuclear power plant. It currently has two 1,000 MW Soviet-made nuclear reactors in operation, with the previous four closed by 2007.
Denkov said the new reactors' total capacity of 2,300 MW will significantly exceed the 1,760 MW capacity of the four blocks that had been closed.
He said the technology chosen for the construction of the reactors was particularly suited to ensuring "the stable management of the energy system", according to the statement. It did not provide further detail.
($1 = 1.8466 leva)
Reporting by Stoyan Nenov; Writing by Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Jan Harvey
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Related Knowledge Center: ENERGY BASICS: nuclear
Nuclear energy provides almost 20 percent of the U.S. electricity supply. Advocates have called for an expanded role for nuclear as an emissions-free fuel source. But the economics of building new reactors are daunting. In addition, lingering safety concerns are an institutionalized part of the calculation of nuclear regulation, and highly radioactive nuclear waste remains a can that public officials have been inclined to kick down the road. The Energy Information Administration projects a sharp decline in nuclear power generation over the next decade, as new nuclear plants — two are planned — are more than offset by anticipated retirements of several operating reactors.