Laura Lapina from Riga in Latvia presents quotes from two Latvian politicians, one scientist and one representative of an environmental movement concerning their attitudes towards the nuclear energy.
A planned new nuclear reactor in Lithuania to serve all three Baltic States and Poland will not be ready for at least 16 years. „What we see is that this project is off schedule. Probably by the most optimistic forecasts we could have a new nuclear power plant in 2025.“
Valdis Dombrovskis, Prime minister of Latvia
‘Currently, many national energy policies within the EU are not sustainable. Individual member states alone decide on their energy policy. The Commission encourages member states to consider carefully the nuclear energy option in contributing towards a balanced energy mix. The spring 2007 European Council endorsed the Commission proposal to cut CO2 emissions by 20% as well as to increase energy efficiency in the EU by the same amount by 2020. Nuclear energy currently has an important role to play in this fight against climate change: it generates two thirds of the EU carbon free electricity. Abandoning nuclear generating capacity may lead to higher CO2 emissions since renewable energy sources and energy efficiency measures are by far not sufficient to substitute a phasing out of nuclear plants across the EU.
read more
