The Minister of Energy published an official statement in which he tries to draw the attention of Romanians from all over the country to a very serious problem facing Romania, energy dependence on fossil fuels, and says that nuclear energy is a key component in finding a solution to reduce.
Minister of Energy there's one among the signatories of a request sent to the European Commission to allow the use of nuclear energy in order to generate electricity, and Romania does not seem to have other solutions at the moment to be able to face the crisis generated by the war in Ukraine for us.
"Nuclear energy is capable of facing various challenges. First, nuclear is capable of providing the volumes of electricity needed for increased electrification and is a key component in finding a solution to reduce our dependence on fossil fuel imports from Russia while meeting the highest safety standards.
Secondly, considering the so-called system and balancing costs of the power system, nuclear is a competitive source of energy, which must be taken into account when considering specific financing schemes for such projects with intensive capital. Regarding the management of radioactive waste, including from medicine or industrial applications, safe technologies are available for storage and disposal; for highly radioactive waste, deep geological repositories are considered, based on the knowledge gained by the nuclear industry, to be an adequate and safe solution, and the technology for their construction is already available today.
In finally, Europe needs a realistic hydrogen production strategy and should not rely heavily on imports – given the existing challenges of energy import dependency. Europe needs to increase its capacity to produce low-carbon hydrogen and put in place an appropriate framework for the development of hydrogen produced using nuclear power.
The first step is already included in the complementary delegated act on Taxonomy, which sets out criteria for the safe construction and operation of new nuclear power plants, including hydrogen production. This will enable the European hydrogen production ecosystem to be deployed more quickly, on a large scale.
Based on the above, we, the undersigned, join the position of the 20 unions representing the interests of energy workers in Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Hungary, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, who support the inclusion of energy nuclear power in the EU taxonomy as vital to combating climate change and increasing energy independence."
