A Romanian NGO helped organise public hearings on the country’s ambitious nuclear power programme, which includes the expansion of a type of reactor largely rejected in Canada - By Alexandru R. Savulescu LOW FLOW: A vessel passes by the Cernavoda nuclear power plant on the Danube-Black Sea channel. Low water levels, as experienced during the summer of 2003, have forced occasional shutdowns at the plant. Photo: EPA In Romania, the debate over nuclear power too often goes on behind closed doors. To open the subject to a wider audience, Romania's Association of Nature Lovers (ARIN) -- together with the Ecumenical Association of Churches in Romania and the Bucharest Center for Independent Journalism -- developed a project called "Free Access to Nuclear Information -- Implementing the Aarhus Convention in Romania." The project was one of nine that garnered local grants from a REC initiative to support the implementation of the Aarhus Convention in South Eastern Europe. Funding came from the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "This project offered me the rare opportunity to speak to nuclear industry experts," said Peter Lengyel, biologist and scientific secretary of UNESCO Pro Natura, a member organisation of the World Conservation Union. The jewel of Romania's nuclear industry is the power generator at Cernavoda. At present, the Cernavoda plant has only one operational reactor, U1, whose construction was finished in 1996. It produces approximately 10 percent Romania's electricity. It was to be the first of five CANDU (Canadian Deuterium Uranium) reactors. Their construction began in the late '70s, but suffered long delays during the last years of the Ceausescu regime. The unfinished four reactors at Cernavoda sit in varying stages of completion, with U2 the closest to completion. To fully exploit these existing facilities, the Romanian Government has put its weight behind the development of a nuclear energy programme. According to a October 2003 report by Terra Mileniul III, an NGO specialising in energy issues, finishing Unit 2 -- "U2" -- will benefit U3 and U4, thus making Romania a key electricity exporter in the Balkans. "The Institute for Research and Environmental Engineering carried out a complete and complex Environmental Impact Assessment for U2," said Ioan Jelev, General Director for Environmental Protection at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Waters and Environment. Romanian citizens weighed in on U2 during fall hearings in 2001 in Constanta, Medgidia and Cernavoda. At the request of Bulgarian NGOs and international organisations, the Romanian ministry and its Bulgarian counterpart held public debates on the U2 in Bulgaria, whose border lies just 100 km from the plant. The hearings were in accordance with the Espoo UNECE Convention on environmental impact assessment in a transboundary context, Jelev said. "Now, all the conditions for the environmental permit for U2 have been fulfilled," he said. According to Terra Mileniul III's report, the consortium that runs Cernavoda -- comprising Nuclearelectrica National Society (NNS) Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. and Ansaldo Energia from Italy -- needs more than EUR 700 million to wrap up work on U2. This would be covered by a EUR 235 million loan from Euratom, a CAD 316 million loan from the Export Development Corporation of Canada to the Canadian partner, a financial guarantee of EUR 118 million from the Italian Export Credit Agency SACE for the Italian partner, and other smaller contributions from Romania, France and the United States. "We are speaking about a huge amount of money that will have to be paid back to the last cent by Romanian tax-payers, whether or not they were consulted when this decision was taken," Nedelcu said. Terra Mileniul III's report has criticised U2's financing. First of all, it notes that Euratom's loan violates that agency's mandate by the European Union, which is to improve the safety and efficiency of existing reactors outside the EU, not to finance new ones. Regarding the Italian credit, the report notes Italy's double standard of promoting nuclear power abroad while banning it domestically as a result of a 1987 referendum. According to the NGO's report, the Canadians promote similar double standards: CANDU reactors built in Canada include a vacuum building, while export versions, such as U1 and U2, lack this expensive safety device that would be vital in a major accident. Officially, U1 is safe as can be, with no accidents ever reported. Only a few small events have ever obliged the NNS to temporarily shut down the reactor. But Terra Mileniul III insists Romanians have cause for concern due to a characteristic safety problem with CANDU plants' accelerated ageing. After discovering this problem, Canadian authorities shut down one third of the 22 CANDU reactors in Canada between 1997 and 1998. Since then, only one of these reactors has been restarted, in 2003, and only after expensive reconstruction work. No new reactor has been built in Canada. "We are indeed aware of this potential safety problem," said Constantin Milu, head of the Radiation Hygiene Laboratory of the Institute for Public Health, and president of the Romanian Society for Radiological Protection. "That's why, as U1 grows older, we are planning to put in place more detailed health surveys," he said, mentioning that these would help screen workers at the reactor as well as the population around Cernavoda and other major nuclear units. The surveys done so far "do not indicate any health problem related to radiation," Milu said. The "Free Access to Nuclear Information -- Implementing the Aarhus Convention in Romania" project brought together government and NGO experts to improve transparency and access to information. An international discussion group was set up involving NGOs across South Eastern Europe. A comprehensive web site was launched at www.nuclearinfo.ro

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