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["Radik Ixanov" <ixanov@sympatico.ca>]

Nuclear.Ru (http://www.nuclear.ru/eng/news) informed on Sept 12, 2003.


“It may be expected that the IAEA expert judgments will be confirmed and
what has been done for the recent year will be considered as well”, said to
Nuclear.Ru Milko Kovachev, the minister of energy and energy resources of
Bulgaria elaborating on the upcoming independent EC peer review to evaluate
future operation of Kozlodui-3, 4. He reminded that the last year IAEA
mission evaluated the unit three and four conditions and issued “the
positive statement on the whole”. “It is unlikely that the coming inspection
will produce a drastic difference in conclusions by experts”, said Kovachev
who participated in the annual symposium of the World Nuclear Association
held last week in London.

Speaking on prospects to send INF (irradiated nuclear fuel) from Kozlodui
nuclear plant to Russia, the minister reminded that at present Bulgaria
implements the existing INF processing contract. While saying that he noted
the importance of so-called “buffer amounts”, i.e. the amounts of irradiated
nuclear fuel in store at the plant’s site. Some time ago certain investments
were made to the pool-type storage facility and now the “dry” storage
implementation is underway. “In any event this is an intermediate stage with
the final one to be the direct storage or sending for processing”, Kovachev
said adding that in Bulgaria it is difficult to solve this problem apart
from the world community”. The minister also said that in cooperation with
the IAEA they pursued the regional approach and would be actively
participating in solution of this issue at the international scale, but
using both opportunities so far.

As regards the completion of Belene N-plant construction, as Kovachev
thinks, the government is to receive the report from working groups and
basing on that make judgment regarding commercial prospects of the project.
“We expect the Belene nuclear plant decision is made this year”, the
minister said. He also added that if a decision were made regarding the
tender the previous experience of construction (the 1980s), when it had been
done to the VVER-1000 design, would be taken into consideration. “The site
preparation investments and the first unit equipment was over one billion
dollars, and this was essential, he said. “Another important factor is the
equipment conditions”. On the whole, the minister thinks nuclear power is
“the alternative, which should not be forgotten”. “Our power generation did
not suffer due to the Iraqi crisis when the world oil prices went high,
because it is built upon coal and atomic energy. This lesson must be learnt
for the sake of future development of the industry”, Kovachev said.