Czech energy sector caught between ideology and politicking

In the coming years and decades, our energy sector will need to be renewed and restructured. Yet rather than seeking to transform it on the basis of facts and expert knowledge, our politicians have unanimously resorted to ideological posturing and politicking. In recent days, they have, in my view, largely made a rational approach in the coming years impossible, which will lead at the very least to considerable delays. This poses a serious future threat to the ability of our energy system to ensure sufficient energy, with corresponding impacts on the economic and social standard of living of our society.

Decision-making on the possible construction of a new nuclear source and the overall future of the Czech energy sector is currently reaching its climax. I increasingly get the impression that most Czech politicians, regardless of party affiliation, have decided to take the path of failing to address energy issues and exploiting this matter for political conflict.

Tender for the construction of new Dukovany unit

Last week, representatives of governing and opposition parties held talks on the financing model and the selection of a supplier for a new unit at Dukovany. All relevant opposition parties insist that the key criteria are ideological and geopolitical. In their view, only these factors decide. Security, technological and economic parameters are not assessed unless these conditions are met. On this basis, they demand that suppliers from China and Russia not be admitted to the tender. The situation is complicated by the fact that these very bidders would rank among the favourites under criteria other than ideological and geopolitical ones.

Let us recall that, in principle, there could be five candidates. Those from ideologically unsuitable countries would be the Chinese Hualong One reactor (HPR1000) and the Russian VVER1200 reactor. The others would be the US AP1000, a scaled-down version of South Korea's APR1400 reactor, and a scaled-down version of France's EPR reactor. The Pirates, for example, are campaigning for higher-capacity units to be allowed in the competition as well. However, the 1200 MWe capacity limit for the Dukovany unit has a number of technical justifications. If the new unit operates alongside the old ones, this limit is determined by cooling capacity. Moreover, for the size of the Czech power system, units of 1200 MWe are already at the limit of what is practical. There is also still the issue of transporting large components, which are larger for bigger units.

Let us look at the Generation III VVER1200 reactor, for whose exclusion the opposition is campaigning so intensely. From the security and technological standpoint, it is a highly successful design, perhaps even the most successful. It is an evolution of the VVER440 and VVER1000 reactors, which operate safely in a number of European Union countries, including Finland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Experience with them has been very good. Fuel, servicing and maintenance for these reactors can be provided by Western companies and are not dependent on Russian ones. Construction of VVER1200 reactors is being prepared at Hungary's Paks plant and Finland's Hanhikivi plant. The units there are being built by a consortium. Rosatom supplies the reactor, GE Power the turbine, and Framatome the control systems. For both projects, almost all permits have already been obtained, and the key permit that should allow concreting of the nuclear island to begin is awaited. Both projects should receive it this year. Four of these reactors are already operating in Russia. Another started up last year in Belarus, close to the European Union border and thus under its very strict supervision. At the same time, it has the highest number of units under construction of any Generation III reactor. The current state of nuclear energy is described in greater detail in a recent article. The reality surrounding the selection of the new Dukovany unit and an explanation of false claims circulating about it can be found in another article.

It must be said that the governing and opposition parties have jointly succeeded in totally discrediting the planned tender before it has even been launched. Let us recall that one tender for completion of a pair of units at Temelín had already been announced. After bidders spent substantial resources preparing their projects, the tender was cancelled at the final stage. In this new one, politicians are declaring in advance that, as far as bidders are concerned, they are interested almost exclusively in ideology and politics. The dispute is over whether Russian and Chinese companies should also be invited in order to drive down the price. It is openly declared in advance that this is their sole role. The absolute peak was the television debate after the aforementioned meeting between Zbyněk Stanjura, Roman Onderka and Karel Havlíček, where it was said that Russian companies could be invited in some consortium, but once they had fulfilled the task of lowering the price, they would in fact supply only something equivalent to door handles.

Do our democratic politicians really not realise that representatives of potential bidders are certainly listening carefully? And what does it cause when they publicly proclaim that the technological, security and economic quality of projects does not matter, and that everything is decided by the political and ideological assessment of particular politicians and political parties? Nor are the other bidders politically equal. South Korea is not a NATO member and the US is not a European Union member. Do politicians really not feel that after the performance they have now put on, it will be very difficult for anyone to believe that the contract will not be awarded to a company purely on the basis of a political decision? Such behaviour only creates fertile ground for corruption.

In my view, our politicians have created such an atmosphere through their current disputes over the tender that I am beginning to agree with Dana Drábová's view that it would be appropriate to postpone it. The obstacles they have managed to throw in the way of implementing the new source are too great. And I cannot shake the impression that for some, this was intentional. Perhaps, in the political situation prevailing here, the most appropriate course would be not to launch any tender and, like the Poles, select the supplier purely on political criteria. It would never have occurred to me that a situation could arise again in which the choice of technology is not decided by expert facts and experts, but purely by the view of a politician with the right ideological credentials.

I am quite fascinated when politicians proclaiming the geopolitical and ideological necessity of prohibiting the purchase of Russian or Chinese nuclear technologies block the construction of new nuclear sources and do not mind at all that, instead, Russian gas and photovoltaic panels or batteries from China will have to be imported for many decades. Through this conduct, they have thus supported the economies of these countries far more significantly.

New update of the state energy policy

Besides the fact that many opposition politicians were happy to use the proposed tender as an opportunity to fight the government, quite a few of them oppose construction of a new nuclear unit in general. Or at least they are trying to win the support of voters who would rather not see it built. They are seeking to defer the decision until a new update of the state energy policy has been prepared. Let us recall that the previous update, drafted and approved in 2015, envisaged a gradual transition to low-emission energy by replacing coal with nuclear units and renewable sources. The development of individual sources' shares in the mix was recommended within relatively broad ranges, so that potential technological breakthroughs could be used.

What has changed in the five years since that update? A fundamental factor is that progress in building low-emission sources has been minimal during that time. We have made no progress towards construction of a nuclear source, and only a minimal number of new renewable sources have been built. Conversely, pressure in the European Union to close coal-fired units and reduce CO2 emissions has increased dramatically. Nothing has changed in the fact that our geographical conditions provide very limited opportunities for building renewable sources. Nor has it changed that during periods such as much of this January, wind and photovoltaic sources provide almost nothing. At the same time, a larger number of pumped-storage plants will not be built in the Czech Republic, not least for environmental reasons. There are only relatively limited paths to low-emission energy, and under our geographical conditions, this means only a combination of nuclear and renewable sources.

Given that pressure from the European Union to shut down coal-fired sources as quickly as possible continues to grow, the issue of replacing them is becoming ever more pressing. We can replace them predominantly only with nuclear or gas-fired sources. Given the rising price of emissions allowances, gas-fired sources are also coming under economic pressure, in addition to pressure to move away from fossil fuels. Construction of at least one nuclear source, which will also be needed to replace the ageing Dukovany units, is therefore even more necessary. It truly makes no sense to defer the decision until after a new update of the energy policy has been drafted. It seems to me that politicians who make the decision to build a new nuclear source conditional on this are using it purely as a pretext for postponing, or even blocking, construction of a nuclear source. Either because they oppose it, or because they want to target in elections voters who support nuclear energy as well as those who oppose it.

Date for closing coal-fired power plants

A huge political battle has erupted over the date for ending the use of coal. Green ideology says this must be done immediately, regardless of whether replacements are available. Yet coal-fired sources in the Czech Republic not only provide a large part of our electricity and heat needs, but also provide grid regulation and stability. At a time like the present, when there is no wind and no sunshine, the spinning machines of nuclear and fossil-fuel sources are critical to stabilising the electricity grid. This is also demonstrated by the split of the interconnected European grid that occurred on 8 January 2021.

Its essence is that nuclear and fossil-fuel sources are being shut down in north-western Europe, while only wind and photovoltaic capacity is being built. During winter inversions, there is then a shortage of stable sources there. The south-east still has sufficient conventional sources, so in January large volumes of power were transmitted from south-east to north-west. At the beginning of January, electricity was transmitted from Turkey as far as France and Italy. In such a situation, the grid becomes extremely overloaded, and it is difficult to meet the n-1 rule. It then no longer matters which weak point becomes excessively overloaded. In any case, the risk of an event triggering a cascade of outages, a split in the power system and potentially a blackout rises dramatically. To prevent a blackout, the grid must have sufficient balancing capabilities to maintain and balance its frequency. Here, this rapid instantaneous regulation is provided by the spinning turbines of nuclear, hydroelectric and fossil-fuel power plants. They also have the potential to increase output and balance needs during inversions. In theory, batteries can also provide this rapid regulation, and this is precisely what Musk's famous giant battery in Australia does. However, sufficient capacity of such batteries would be extremely expensive and demanding. Even so, they could not ensure the necessary generating capacity as a replacement for wind turbines and photovoltaics, which do not function without wind and sunshine.

For now, we have sufficient generating and balancing capacity to deal with the events described. We can even help our neighbours, as we helped Austria on 8 January. However, if we shut down coal-fired sources and later the Dukovany reactors without replacements, the situation will change dramatically. And it must be stressed that the shutdown of nuclear and fossil-fuel sources without sufficient replacement of both their generation and balancing capabilities is being prepared across Europe. In critical periods, it certainly will not be possible to import capacity and balancing services.

This is also why the Coal Commission recommended 2038 for ending the use of coal, on the condition that sufficient generation capacity is built to replace the retired coal units and that the ability to maintain grid stability is secured. The recommended date is based on data and information from grid operator ČEPS. Naturally, it cannot be ruled out that, with extreme effort and cooperation by everyone in building low-emission sources and instruments to provide balancing, it will become possible to shut down coal-fired sources earlier. But the people campaigning most for an early exit are also those most strongly calling for postponement or complete cancellation of new low-emission nuclear capacity, and doing the least to deliver future replacement for coal-fired and ageing nuclear sources.

A number of politicians from TOP09 and KDU-ČSL are calling for a faster end to coal and no need for a new nuclear source (see, for example, Luděk Niedermayer's statements here and here, to which I responded last year). The Pirates, through Dana Balcarová for example, advocate the rapid closure of coal-fired sources while criticising construction of the new Dukovany unit, and together with their parliamentary group they campaign against support for nuclear energy in the European Parliament. Thus, while on the one hand they support nuclear power (see, for example, this website), on the other they are taking fundamental steps against it at both European and Czech level. Vít Rakušan of the STAN movement is categorically opposed, for ideological reasons, to purchasing a Russian reactor. He would therefore like to replace coal-fired units with gas, which, however, would not come from Russia (see here). He also lobbies for the rapid closure of coal-fired power plants. ANO minister Vlastimil Brabec is campaigning for the rapid shutdown of coal-fired units. Likewise, ČSSD ministers led by Jan Hamáček advocate an early move away from nuclear power, seeking in this way to win the favour of the Greens and join them for the elections.

Conclusion

Because of politicking, our political scene failed to confront the epidemic. Similarly, all our political parties are jointly heading towards a situation in which, due to permanent electioneering, ideologisation and politicking, they will wreck our energy sector. I wrote as early as September about the failure of both governing and opposition parties in relation to the epidemic. At that time, I hoped that politicians would come to their senses, stop politicking after the elections and begin cooperating rationally. I considered exceeding 5,000 coronavirus deaths to be a failure. By October it was already clear that exceeding 10,000 deaths could no longer be prevented. I hoped that at least this, along with full hospitals and intensive care units, would force our politicians into rational conduct and cooperation.

Let me reiterate that there is never an ideal simple solution without negative aspects that will suit everyone. It is always a matter of a certain compromise. It is never possible to avoid all errors and problems. When we look at the introduction of digitalisation or promotional campaigns carried out in previous governments by parties now in opposition that find fault with every aspect of current activity, we see that they were not much different and the same snags occurred then too. Ideal fine-tuning that would be fair and accepted by everyone can never be achieved. And solutions generally have to be comprehensive and interconnected; one measure cannot be torn out from the others.

Yet the figures mentioned and the images from hospitals have not prompted politicians of any party to move from continuous conflict before one election to continuous conflict before the next. Without proposing a rational course of action, they can attack every problem and snag that emerges. At the same time, they compete to win voters by campaigning for the opening of ski lifts, gyms, sports facilities, cultural venues, hairdressers, one group of shops or another, schools, and whatever else can be imagined. And all of it regardless of the real situation and context of other measures, purely in order to score points with some group of voters. The result of this joint effort by all our political parties is that today it is already certain that, despite relatively harsh and lengthy measures, the pandemic will claim far more than 20,000 victims.

A similar approach to energy has the potential to completely wreck it, and the impacts on our society could be even more devastating than the mismanaged epidemic. However, they will come only after many years and are not visible now. There is little reason to rely on a more responsible approach by politicians in this area when even the sight of overcrowded hospitals does not compel them to take one.

Opposition parties are behaving as though they believe that the only important thing is to bring down the current government and Andrej Babiš. They feel that after their election victory, they will repair all the damage they cause as part of the electoral battle. They fail to realise that the damage may also be irreversible. Looking at the history of nuclear energy, Austria's development is an example. In that country, support for nuclear energy was very strong in the 1970s. In 1978, the first Zwentendorf nuclear power plant was being completed. At the time, Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky had problems with his political position. He knew the opposition supported nuclear energy. He therefore linked the referendum called on commissioning the plant with his remaining in office. He assumed that he could present a certain positive outcome as support for himself. Although the opposition was pro-nuclear, it decided to use the referendum to bring down the unpopular chancellor. Its idea was that after coming to power, it would put everything right and start the plant after a new referendum. In the end, after an intensive campaign, the referendum went against Kreisky and nuclear power, albeit by a very small number of votes. Bruno Kreisky did not resign, and we know what happened to the nuclear power plant. Politicians could not admit total failure, so Austria turned from a pro-nuclear state into the most anti-nuclear one. Brexit, after all, is also the result of a political battle between two factions in the Conservative Party and an attempt to address its internal problems.

Unfortunately, we have set out on Bulgaria's path. At the beginning of the 1990s, Bulgaria's VVER1000 units at the Belene plant were at a more advanced stage than Temelín was at that time. But Bulgarian politicians in competing parties began using energy and the issue of the supplier of nuclear units for political and ideological conflict. To this day, no units have been built, and there is still no decision on whether construction will take place at Belene or Kozloduy. It is not even clear whether anything will be built at all, or what. The environmental and economic outcomes to which green ideology leads are demonstrated, for example, by the history of the Moorburg power plant, which I wrote about recently.

In the 1990s, our politicians were at least able to agree on and implement a project for two units at Temelín. By contrast, today's politicians have followed in the footsteps of the Bulgarian ones. I would very much like to be wrong and to believe in a return to rationality. Yet it appears that expert matters are again being decided by people who are utterly incompetent in the relevant field but possess the right political and ideological credentials. In energy, we will end up having to rapidly build combined-cycle gas units, and only speculative investors will profit from this. And to satisfy our ideological political commissars, we will be dependent on Russian gas for the long term.

Unfortunately, it seems that all I can do is watch the comparison of outcomes reached in building nuclear capacity in Finland, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. Only then will it become clear who chose the right path to the goal. It will be too late for remedy, and it is clear to me that the current politicians here will not own up to what they caused.