Economy 22 June 2015, 2:43pm

Impact studies for Hungary's nuclear project exist - No wonder they're classified

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Impacts studies on the expansion of Hungary’s nuclear power plant in Paks do exist, but they are confidential for a reason, said Benedek Jávor, a local environmentalist and Member of the European Parliament, who has gained access to a few of these documents from an unspecified source. One of the documents is an internal note at the Hungarian Electricity Works (MVM), which offers an opinion on the “updated feasibility study" for the Paks 2 project. The other two documents contain impact studies conceived in academic circles, and there is also an analysis on how the new blocks can be fit into the current system, the politician reported in his blog. According to the documents he published, one of the studies contains fundamental errors and deficiencies and it is based on obsolete preconceptions. As regards the possibility to fit the new blocks into the existing system, they claim Paks 2 will mostly squeeze Paks 1 out of production therefore create serious losses for the currently operating NPP.

Benedek Jávor shared three different documents on his website.

The first one of these is titled ‘Proposals for the updated feasibility study for the new nuclear power plant blocks’, and contains the following statements:

findings from earlier materials have been left in the study that are not necessarily valid today;
we recommend reviewing the market environment that was used as a basis for this study; it is improbable that the same or even similar conditions which characterised the 2007-2008 period, which were taken as a basis for the study, will return and it is also unlikely that the price prognoses for 2011 would be correct even today;
we recommend a review of how the project can be fitted into the system; without supplementary conditions there is a risk that the construction of the new blocks will crowed out a certain percentage of the Paks 1 capacity from production;
we recommend supplementing the information provided on investment costs; the cost of the investment provided in the study is an estimate of economies of scale in nature; the sources of the planned cost, the structure and benchmarks of the costs are unspecified, and it is also unclear which year’s price level needs to be considered, and what the expenditure target contains.

The other two documents obtained are titled ‘Notes for the question of water cooling of the nuclear power plant’s expansion. This reveals that:

it would be difficult to comply with wildlife protection rules without limitations to the power plant; the cooling of the new blocks would need to be adjusted to the local conditions and the water regime of the Danube river in a way that it would not limit electricity production during its planned lifespan;
in the longer term, it should be expected that regulations on the protection of natural surface waters and their wildlife will become significantly stricter therefore it should be prevented that this creates an impediment to the operation of the whole facility.

Finally, the third analysis is about how the new blocks can be fitted into the existing system. This says

the new flexible blocks will primarily crowed out the capacity of Paks 1 from the production of the system; the two new blocks could lead to revenue loss that will be hard to offset;
finding an appropriate solution is primarily the interest of Paks I because a 30-35% reduction in its production could lead to its inability to compete and may cause difficulties in its management.

“In light of all this we can state with certainty that the government bases the establishment of a new (nuclear) power plant on entirely false data and contrary to the official propaganda the internal professional business knows exactly that Orbán and his team have committed to an extremely risky, financially catastrophic and environmentally seriously damaging project that could [...] jeopardize the entire Hungarian electricity system," Jávor said. He has reminded that the EUR 12.5 billion project would cost 10% of Hungary’s GDP.