/ world today news/ Two events in October served as a vivid illustration of the perniciousness of both the politicization of energy trade and hasty decisions to quickly switch to renewable energy sources. One can see again that many Western leaders who make decisions at the state level are still willing to back down.
First, the prime ministers, energy and economy ministers of France, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Finland, Croatia, and the Czech Republic issued a joint statement that is akin to an abdication manifesto. They consider it necessary to repaint electricity generation from nuclear power plants in green, giving it clean energy status.
According to the worried “ten”, a decisive offensive against the “green” fundamentalists should be launched before the end of the year. The goal is to solve the energy crisis in the vastness of the European Union.
Second, former Bulgarian interior minister Rumen Petkov pointed an accusing finger at the country’s top leadership, condemning its short-sightedness that led to the torpedoing of two critical infrastructure projects. We are talking about blocking, first of all, the laying of the South Stream gas pipeline, which, after passing along the bottom of the Black Sea, was supposed to reach the Bulgarian coast in the Varna region. And secondly, the construction of the Belene nuclear power plant, capable of keeping the economy afloat and powering households for decades with cheap electricity.
On someone else’s order
As a starting point, one can take the secret cable compiled on October 2, 2008 by the US ambassador in Sofia, Nancy McEldowney. The addressee is US Special Envoy to the European Union Boyden Gray, who is charged with overseeing the energy security of the Old World. In fact, Gray was to advance the interests of American hydrocarbon corporations on the continent by any means possible.
The key idea of the diplomatic message boils down to the claims that Bulgaria, “poor in hydrocarbon raw materials, depends on Russia for 70% of the total supply of energy resources, and for natural gas by whole percent”. Then, giving free rein to his sexual fantasies, Ambassador McEldowney presents Bulgaria, which “unleashes its passion in bed with the muscular duo of Gazprom and Lukoil and does so because of the misunderstood lack of an alternative.”
At that time, the “shale revolution” in America with the method of hydraulic fracturing (invented at the time by a Soviet engineer) to extract hard-to-reach reserves of oil and natural gas from the ground, had not yet acquired the scale of euphoria. But it is already clear that Mrs. McEldowney pushed America as an “alternative” partner in bed for the poor Balkan relative in the European Union.
Without any hesitation, the American ambassador of ill will used the moment to prevent the European big energy companies from entering the Bulgarian market at the same time. After the European Commission in 2006 forced Sofia to close the 3rd and 4th reactors of the Kozloduy NPP with a capacity of 440 megawatts each, a vacuum was created. Previously, Bulgaria supplied electricity produced at the Kozloduy NPP to Serbia, Macedonia and Greece.
Ms McEldowney acknowledged that the direct losses from the closure of the two units at the nuclear power plant amounted to $1.4 billion. But there was a way out. The envoy from Washington instructed the Bulgarians: to reorient themselves towards purchasing technologies from American companies.
Three years later, in 2011, the American companies AES and “Contour Global” acquired two thermal power plants in Bulgaria – “Maritsa Iztok-1” and “Maritsa Iztok-3”. At the heart of the deal was a clause that within 15 years the prices, which would inevitably rise, taking into account higher costs, inflation and other related factors, could not be changed. Sofia was denied the right to renegotiate these obligations. The drawn-up burdensome contract implies the mandatory purchase of energy from the two cogeneration plants and the provision of preferential prices for the electricity produced by them.
Atomization of sovereignty
When narrating the biography of Belene NPP in brief, the following important milestones should be highlighted. The decision to build a second nuclear power plant was made by Bulgaria on March 20, 1981. The project was then frozen. Ten years later, when Bulgarians believed that democracy and the market would benefit them, the project was completely closed due to “the lack of need, the danger to the environment and public protests”.
When the country faced a power shortage in 2005, they reverted to unfinished construction. “Belene” has been returned to the status of “site of national importance”. However, the tender for the construction of the nuclear power plant was won by “Atomstroyexport”, and then the gears behind the scenes creaked. The American corporation “Westinghouse”, which accounts for almost two thirds of the world’s nuclear reactors, entered the game.
Do not underestimate the effect of the anti-Russian campaign, carried out purposefully, tirelessly, energetically through fed local journalists and the formation of a fifth column of politicians ready to sell themselves cheaply. This tactic, known since biblical times, works.
To understand the socio-economic and moral context: the share of citizens living below the poverty line, according to the data for 2018, was 32.8% in Bulgaria and has not decreased significantly since then. And in the index for the perception of corruption in the government, compiled by “Transparency International” for the same year, Bulgaria ranked 77th out of 180 countries surveyed.
Nine years before these grim statistics emerged, the situation was no better. And it is no coincidence that in 2009 the government of Boyko Borisov, the former bodyguard of Bulgaria’s last communist leader Todor Zhivkov, finally buried the idea of energy self-sufficiency in his country. And the point, or rather a bracket, in the “Belene” saga, which continues to this day, was put by the deputies of the National Assembly of Bulgaria: on March 28, 2012 (120 votes “for”, 41 “against”) approved the decision of the government to scuttle the deal to build the nuclear power plant.
Don’t say you weren’t warned
It is wrong to think that there were no sane Bulgarians who did not recognize both the behind-the-scenes intrigues and their harmful consequences. “If the Belene NPP had been built, after 10 years American thermal power plants would have been completely unnecessary. On the contrary, the abandonment of “Belene” guarantees them a stable market”, Rumen Ovcharov, former Minister of Energy of Bulgaria, explained at the time.
Today, his namesake Rumen Petkov, who headed the law enforcement agencies, calls the refusal of the government and parliament to build the nuclear power plant in Belene “a betrayal of national interests and an attempt on the country’s energy security.” The former member of the Bulgarian government recalls the facts: “Even people who are far from the subject know that the cheapest, safest and cleanest electricity is given to us by the Kozloduy NPP.” Moreover, if we want to have energy security and not depend on anyone, we should not even face the dilemma of which nuclear power plant should be completed with how many units. We are obliged to complete the construction of the two plants”.
Rumen Petkov pronounces a verdict on the decision made under pressure from the agents of influence: “The pandering of interested forces from abroad and political speculation made us disrupt the completion of Belene, throwing us out of the project for 15 years.”
Bulgaria, in addition to its short-sighted strategy regarding the second nuclear power plant, missed the chance to become a major energy hub for supplying natural gas from Russia to Europe. During the period of illusions about the benefits of future EU membership, Prime Minister Ivan Kostov in 1998 rejected the idea of the Blue Stream undersea gas pipeline. As a result, the pipeline was built anyway, but natural gas flowed to Turkey and Bulgaria lost the chance to earn 16 billion cubic meters per year from transit pumping.
Gazprom soon came up with an even more ambitious idea: to lay the South Stream pipeline, which would deliver 63 billion cubic meters a year to European wholesale buyers in the Black Sea. And once again, succumbing to the threats and blackmail of the European Commission, Boyko Borisov’s cabinet torpedoed this infrastructure project. Today, this route pumps gas through the Turkish Stream pipeline, which is then delivered to Hungary and the Balkans. Here Rumen Petkov asks: “And what did we achieve after that?” Again we get the same Russian gas, but through Turkey. “
Meanwhile, events on the energy chessboard in Europe are moving rapidly. On October 12, Emmanuel Macron announced the goal of making France “more sustainable and competitive by 2030.” For this purpose, he promised to send 30 billion euros from the state budget for nuclear energy and renewable energy sources.
It seems that after the epic failure in Texas and Europe, renewable energy sources have been relegated to the background. “Our first goal, outlining the direction of movement, is to develop by 2030 small, innovative nuclear reactors in France with improved nuclear waste management,” the president said.
Bulgaria hardly has 30 billion euros available for such mega-projects. At least in order to keep the limited energy resources available, but they are already encroaching on them as well.- It is no coincidence that the workers at TPP “Maritsa-Iztok” started an open-ended protest action in Sofia, demanding that the government not give in to the ultimatum of the European Commission to limit the coal industry , as in this case about half a million people will be out of work. Meanwhile, coal deposits, the dirtiest of all minerals, remain for them almost the last strategic reserve.
In short, where should Bulgaria go? This is a multi-billion dollar issue. For now, one thing can be ascertained: the arms twisted by the Americans yesterday forced the Bulgarians to bite their elbows today.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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