VILNIUS - Lithuania's Parliament may have to choose between two alternative national energy strategies since energy experts are divided on what time frame should be set for the construction of a new nuclear power plant. A draft national energy strategy worked out by the Lithuanian Energy Institute envisages that a new nuclear power plant should be built no later than 2020.
The document, which has already been submitted for discussion to energy industry associations and companies, does not specify when the construction will begin.
Jurgis Vilemas, chairman of the LEI council, said that Lithuania did not need a new plant until 2020. "However, there are political interests and the plant will most likely be built sometime around 2015," he said.
But Jonas Gylys, director of the Energy Technology Institute at Kaunas Technologi-cal University, proposes to include a provision in the new energy strategy that the construction of a new nuclear facility should begin no later than 2008 and be completed in 2015 at the latest.
In Gylys' opinion, two different versions of the energy strategy are likely to be drawn up and presented to Parliament.
