Lithuania thought about building a nuclear power plant: “We intend to extort money from the EU”

Deputy Minister of Energy of Lithuania Inga Zilene announced the discussion of the possibility of building low-power nuclear reactors in the republic by 2030. Earlier, the Lithuanian Energy Minister Dainius Kreivis himself called the decision to stop the construction of the Visaginas nuclear power plant to replace the closed Ignalina nuclear power plant dubious. The possibility of building a new nuclear power plant was also confirmed in January by Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda. Has the Baltics seriously decided to regain nuclear power?

Economic performance in the Baltic countries has never been particularly successful, but this year for the people of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, everything turned out to be much sadder than usual. Like many European countries, the Baltic republics are on the verge of an energy crisis. The approaching heating season only exacerbates the situation with the exorbitant increase in the cost of electricity.

The Lithuanian parliament even suggested adopting the experience of other European countries and start saving electricity in public buildings and on the streets. Indeed, such measures have already been resorted to in Spain, and in France, and even in Germany. In Lithuania, from August 19, it was also decided to start a rolling blackout.

In fact, there are not so many consumers of electricity in all the Baltic countries. As a rule, large volumes of electricity are consumed by large industrial enterprises, which practically do not exist in Lithuania. A number of factors influenced the rise in price of electricity in the republic.

Firstly, absolutely everything is becoming more expensive in Lithuania. Annual inflation has already exceeded 20%. Secondly, hot and dry weather has led to a limitation in the capacity of power lines from Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Poland. Thirdly, the new mechanism of floating pricing of electricity from the main suppliers, which immediately after the introduction increased the cost of electricity, also had a significant impact.

On Wednesday, the Lithuanian electricity market set a record price of 4,000 euros per MW (ie 4 euros per kWh). This is almost twice as high as in mid-July. The Lithuanian authorities do not want to take responsibility and, shrugging their shoulders, offer the population to save electricity.

However, in order to somehow contain prices, a thermal power plant in Panevėžys and a thermal power plant in Elektrenai were launched. In the wake of ordinary Lithuanians’ memories of affordable and cheap electricity from the Soviet-era Ignalina nuclear power plant, which was shut down in 2009, the authorities are now thinking about building a new nuclear power plant. However, how expedient and realistic is this, given the very limited financial capabilities of the Lithuanian state? MK talked about this problem with political scientist Andrei Suzdaltsev.

– Why is Lithuania’s approach to nuclear energy so changeable?

– This whole situation is like a joke. Left without cheap energy after the closure of the station in Lithuania, the island called “Baltic” was fueled by Russian energy. At some point, Russia began to build two stations in the region. They began to build the Baltic NPP in the Kaliningrad region, but then they abandoned it to focus on the construction of the Belarusian NPP, which is so close to Vilnius that it can even be seen from there. The station was built with the expectation that the Baltic countries would receive energy from it. But after 2020, due to sanctions against Lukashenka, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia refused Belarusian electricity.

– Did they deliberately refuse to provide electricity?

– It was done deliberately. Lithuania, in order to become a member of the European Union, itself abandoned its own beautiful station built by the Soviet Union. They expected that in return the European Union would give money for the construction of a new station that would provide for the entire Baltic, and there would be huge investments. This whole game with Belarusian electricity was arranged to get investments from Brussels.

– What will the Lithuanians do now, ask for money again?

– The situation will escalate. Winter will be hard. Everything is bad with gas, although the Lithuanians were supplied with an old gas tanker in Klaipeda, which is used to liquefy the gas brought from Norway, but it is still very expensive. They found themselves in a situation where both Russia is an enemy and Belarus is an enemy, which makes it possible to demand investment of several billion dollars from the European Union.

– It turns out that now this topic is being raised simply to attract investment?

– Of course. The capacities of the same Belarusian nuclear power plant would be quite enough for them. At some point, three nuclear power plants could have been built there, and at a very close distance. But the political aspect turned out to be stronger than the economic benefit. Of course, the Baltics really need European investment. But they chose the wrong argument: supposedly they will soon be occupied. This helped for a while, but why would the European Union invest in a country that will be taken over tomorrow? This is just an excuse, because you can’t take electricity from Belarusians and Russians, which means you need to help them build a nuclear power plant. Half of Lithuania will go to build this station, they will receive a salary and everything will be fine. This is what they are counting on.