VILNIUS - Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas has spoken out in favor of extending the life of the Ignalina nuclear power plant and commencing negotiations with the European Union at once.
The prime minister suggested that a force majeure situation could arise 's one in which Lithuania would remain in an extreme electricity deficit 's that would give the country the right to extend the reactor's life.
He expressed hope that the amendments to the nuclear power law passed by Parliament last week will provide the basis for talks with EU officials.
"We will keep our commitments and close the reactor but will extend its operation for the time period for which we will have no alternative power supplies, which we cannot replace with anything else, because we will be completely dependent on our known neighbor or on gas or electricity import," Kirkilas told Lithuanian Radio on Feb. 5.
"Our plan is very simple - to present it to the European Commission, which is responsible for the energy security of its member countries, and hope that it will be taken into consideration," he said.
The prime minister said that Lithuania could extend the plant's operations from 2010 to about 2015-2016, by which time the new nuclear reactor should be built.
Lithuania, one of the most nuclear dependent countries in the world, closed the first reactor at the end of 2004 and made a commitment to the EU to close the second one by year 2009.
Kirkilas' words echo those of President Valdas Adamkus, who in January said in an interview in Sweden that the Ignalina reactor, a Soviet built facility, did not pose an environmental threat and could easily continue operating until Lithuania's energy security was guaranteed by other means.
Like Adamkus, Kirkilas said that some European officials have shown a measure of solidarity with Lithuania, including Poland's deputy prime minister.
"I have no doubt that we will find support among other countries as well. When we reach a consensus on temporary extension of the second unit, I think, we can solve the problem of shortage of electricity in this manner," Kirkilas said.
As he explained, the Energy Institute is preparing a study of consequences in order to convince the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to support the extension.
"I hope that we will have this study completed within a month, and we will present it in the context of energy security," Kirkilas said.
In the meantime, plans to build a new atomic power plant received fresh impetus over the past week after Parliament passed a number of essential amendments to the law on nuclear power (see story on Page 1) and Lietuvos Energija, the national utility, selected a Finnish-Lithuanian team to carry out the environmental impact study.
Finland's Poyry Energy and the Lithuanian Energy Institute will conduct the study, which will cost some 1.2 million euros and take six months to complete. The report will go far in determining what kind of reactor and output capacity the new facility will have.
But first it will undergo public discussion. "In August 2008 we are to present the EIA report and we expect active participation of the public in open debates to make comments and proposals," Tadas Matulionis, head of the nuclear strategy department at Lietuvos Energija, said in a statement.
He said a final decision on whether to build the plant would be taken after considering the plethora of opinions from all spectra of society.
Previously it has been reported that the government would like make a final decision on the plant in February 2009, or three years after the Baltic prime minister first expressed a willingness to build a new plant.
Barring unforeseen circumstances, the project will receive final approval, and government ministries will begin to hold tenders for construction sometime late in 2009.
Though Kirkilas and other government officials are sticking to the original 2015 deadline, it would seem the target is unrealistic, particularly if two or more reactors are built.
Another eventuality project developers 's and financiers 's will have to consider is expenditures, which are likely to soar. As of now government and energy officials aren't discussing the price tag since the facility's reactor-type and output capability are unclear, though this could become a major stumbling block to the project's feasibility.