Romania is planning to develop its strategic partnership with the U.S to develop nuclear projects to help it reach its green energy goals, Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă said.
Nuclaer projects
“Romania is the only European country with North American nuclear technology. We need new sources of energy, and there is a political consensus for the development of nuclear projects,” the prime minister said on Monday after meeting US Department of Energy Deputy Secretary David M. Turk in Bucharest.
The government wants to expand Romania’s electricity generation capacity to strengthen regional energy security.
If an settlement on shifting forward with an influence station is reached, Romania may turn out to be the primary nation in Europe, and maybe in the world to have such a plant, often known as a small modular reactor or SMR.
Designed to be cheaper and simpler to construct than conventional nuclear reactors, modular reactors have been proposed by a number of producers.
Energy independence
Romania also needs to build two more reactors at the Cernavodă power plant to reach a level that will ensure its energy independence.
The new projects that will help this progress are linked to the implementation of SMRs which is based on technology owned by the American company NuScale.
The SMR in Romania will be installed on the land of the former heating plant in Doicesti, southern Romania by 2030.
NuScale
The 6-module NuScale 6-module power plant will generate 193 permanent jobs, 1,500 jobs in construction, 2,300 jobs in production and help Romania. It will help avoid 4 milliontons of CO2 emissions per year.
The first SMR will be installed in Doicesti! Today with our partners from USA we made this important announcement – decarbonization without nuclear isn”t possible! Congrats SNN and NuScale – Strategic partnership USA – RO in energy field its strong and important for both states pic.twitter.com/Wy7AxgctMr
— Virgil Popescu (@vpopescu68) May 23, 2022
The site has been identified following an in-depth study conducted with $1.2 million funds received by Nuclearelectrica in early 2021, within a grant provided by USTDA to identify and assess various sites for the implementation of small modular reactors in Romania.
The main benefits are decarbonisation, which is a European goal, a Romanian government statement said.
Nuclear safety
Romania has more advantages, which qualify it as one of the first countries to deploy the first SMR in Europe: more than 25 years of experience in operating its nuclear plant at an excellent standard of nuclear safety, productivity and workforce performance.
Romania and the U.S. have a strong partnership in the nuclear industry going back to the early 80s.
In 2019, Romania broke off talks with China about supplying further standard reactors at Cernavoda in eastern Romania and turned to the U.S.
The reactors at Cernavoda are of Canadian design, but Romanian officers say they’re speaking to American contractors a couple of function in constructing new ones.
