Fortum is placing renewable energy is top of its list of priorities internationally, but reiterated that its stance on supporting nuclear energy production had not changed.
“We are not revising our nuclear plans, despite the Fukuyama disaster in Japan, the change of policy in Germany and other parts of Europe and the general economic downturn,” head of international communications at Fortum Izabela van den Bossche said at a press conference in Warsaw on Tuesday, adding that the company was not interested in shale gas exploration, an area that promises to start production as early as 2014, six years at least before the first nuclear facility, should it go ahead, start production.
Shale gas production sits full square in the picture of how Poland will seek to diversify its gas supplies away from Russian sources over the next two decades, but the nuclear option is hanging on in there.
Russia supplies about two thirds of Polish gas needs and Poland has been looking for the last two decades at ways of diversifying its sources. Poland is believed to have the largest deposits of shale gas in Europe and exploration appears to be indicating sufficient deposits to make commercial drilling cost effective.
The Polish Economy Ministry is still preparing a report on the country’s nuclear energy strategy, Deputy Prime Minister Waldemar Pawlak said in 2011. The decision to write the report came in the wake of the events in Japan in 2011 and Germany's decision to move away from nuclear energy from 2022.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk in November 2008 announced the construction of two nuclear power plants in Poland with 3,000 MW each. The first block would start in 2020. The costs of constructing these power plants and associated investments in the energy market is estimated at $100 billion.
In mid-2011 the official invitation to tender for the supplier of technology to the first power plant was made and the tender winner is seen chosen by the end of 2013, with construction commencing in early 2016.
“If in the future it emerges that investment in nuclear energy in Poland faces serious objections then I'm open to a proposal for a referendum on the construction of nuclear power plants,” Tusk said in June 2011. "We all know how dominant energy exports from Russia still are for the region and nobody hides from the fact that we'd like to get a position where we are independent of our [currently] largest supplier of energy."
The Polish energy group designated to oversee the nuclear building projects, PGE, believes the plants can be built for a cost of €3-3.5bn per 1000MW.
48% of Poles asked in 2011 were opposed to the construction of a nuclear power plant in Poland, according to a poll by TNS OBOP for public television programme ‘Forum.’ 46% believe nuclear power should be produced in Poland, with 6% not having an opinion.(jh)
[CORRECTION: some of this text has been corrected and we apologise for any confusion it may have caused].