SOURCE: Dnevnik (Bulgaria)
The Kozloduy International Decommissioning Support Fund (KIDSF), administered by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), will grant 39 mln euro ($53.1 mln) to Bulgaria for the construction of a thermal power plant on the site of the Kozloduy nuclear plant, Dnevnik daily reported on July 8, 2007.
Lithuania should join the International Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (INPP) Decommissioning Support Fund (Ignalina IDSF) as a new member by mid-2007 under the draft amendment to the fund's regulations submitted to the Assembly of Contributors to Ignalina IDSF held in London in December.
"It means that Lithuania will be able to get more information and will have a greater say since it would have a vote," Arturas Dainius, the Economy Ministry Secretary, told BNS.
A plan to upgrade two nuclear reactors in Solvakia may force Western governments to stop dithering over nuclear safety in Eastern Europe.
Ever since the reactor at Chernobyl exploded in 1986 spewing radioactivity over more than 20 countries, Europeans have lived in fear of another large-scale nuclear disaster. That fear grew when the Iron Curtain fell, revealing the full extent of the problems with nuclear plants in the former Eastern bloc. It also fuelled a fierce debate: should Soviet-designed reactors be shut down or could they be made 'safe'?
