Bratislava – The biggest danger for Slovakia is the inclusion of nuclear fuel in the EU’s RePower plan. This was stated by Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) at the 18th European Nuclear Forum (ENEF) in Bratislava, noting that it could harm the country’s energy security. TASR reports on this.
“We can never agree to RePowering when it comes to January 1, 2028, meaning we are primarily talking about gas. We will never be able to agree to make decisions that harm energy security, and if we consider that today we produce a little over 60% of our electricity from nuclear power in Slovakia, we are talking about a country that is important from this perspective not only for the territory of the Slovak Republic,” stated Robert Fico.
Slovakia is interested in being an innovative country
According to him, Slovakia is a country that is interested in being innovative. This includes, for example, the interest in producing small modular reactors, as well as creating a center for processing spent fuel and its reuse.
He reminded that on September 10 of this year, the government signed an agreement with the United States regarding the use of the infrastructure of the nuclear power plant in Jaslovské Bohunice. A new nuclear block is to be built, with a capacity greater than 1000 megawatt-hours (MWh). According to him, this step will be important not only for Slovakia but also for Central Europe. He emphasized that the Slovak Republic is a country that knows how to build nuclear power plants, but also how to decommission them.
“I believe that the decommissioning program in Jaslovské Bohunice is a program for the whole world and it needs to be maximally utilized; we need to train as many people as possible because even in this part of the nuclear cycle we need to be maximally successful,” Fico assessed.
He further pointed out that there is already significant pressure on electromobility, which will subsequently create pressure on other energy sources. “If we consider that we already have five car manufacturers today and produce more than a million cars annually, what is the pressure on electromobility? We estimate that our consumption could increase by 40% to 60% by 2040, and for that, we will need new sources in addition. Slovakia must compete as a country for data centers, but data centers also require enormous amounts of electricity. We will compete for battery storage, but that also requires again enormous amounts of electricity,” he added. (October 7)
