Over the coming months, the Government Committee aims to draw up an initial report answering the central question of whether nuclear energy has a place in the country’s energy mix. It holds its first meeting tomorrow at the Ministry of Environment and Energy, under the leadership of Nikos Tsafos.
In effect, this is the first formal meeting of the interministerial committee, which is now officially opening the nuclear energy file in Greece, following Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s announcement last March that Greece should examine the potential benefits of small modular reactors (SMRs) for its energy security. More than 20 general secretaries from the participating ministries, along with numerous officials from the energy sector and beyond, are expected to attend tomorrow’s meeting.
Participants will come from the ministries of Foreign Affairs, Defence, Finance, Development, Shipping, Health, Climate Crisis and Civil Protection, and Infrastructure and Transport. The committee’s members, who also include numerous organisations from the energy sector and beyond — such as the Regulatory Authority for Waste, Energy and Water, the Hellenic Atomic Energy Commission, Demokritos, electricity system operators, the Technical Chamber of Greece and private companies — as well as academics, number close to 40.
However, the opening of the new body’s work is expected to be led by Liliya Dulinets, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Nuclear Infrastructure Development Section. She has reportedly been invited to present the IAEA’s so-called Milestones Approach to the committee’s members.
These are the milestones a country must meet, from “Phase 1” (the “Consideration Phase”), where Greece currently stands, through to the development of a national nuclear programme. The international organisation’s official has oversight of around 18 countries in all, at varying stages of progress, including Greece, which are considering joining this particular club.
The pressing questions
In this initial phase, which is the remit of the interministerial committee and the heads of IPTO, HEDNO, SEV and numerous others who may attend tomorrow’s meeting, the aim will be to answer within a reasonable timeframe the most pressing questions that often stand in the way of adopting this technology.
These range from whether nuclear energy has a role in national energy policy to what will happen with nuclear waste and how spent nuclear fuel will be managed and disposed of; how a reactor could be built in an earthquake-prone country; how the supply chain would be established; and, of course, whether the technology would be accepted by the public.
Although the document establishing the committee, published in the Government Gazette in September, stipulated that the final report must be drawn up and submitted to the Cabinet within 24 months of the body’s creation, an initial picture is expected to emerge considerably sooner.
A “Roadmap” targeted for the next six months
According to the same sources, the aim is to produce an initial deliverable within the next six months: a “Roadmap” setting out the scope for Greece to adopt nuclear energy, which could be used at a later stage, presumably by the next government.
The intention to prevent the initiative from turning into an endless exchange of views without results is also evident from the tight schedule of meetings, with three sessions scheduled by the end of November.
In this vein, the broader political framework that committee head N. Tsafos is said to be planning to set out can be summed up in three points.
- Whether nuclear energy fits with the country’s energy mix, what it would cost, and whether adding such units to the Greek energy system could lower wholesale electricity prices.
- The need for the discussion to focus on issues widely seen internationally as obstacles, such as seismicity, safety and the management of radioactive waste.
- The effort to draw up a roadmap setting out precise responsibilities for everyone involved in the event that the country decided to proceed with a nuclear programme — a process that takes an exceptionally long time.
International experience suggests that around 10 to 15 years pass between a country’s decision to acquire a nuclear reactor and its construction.
That means that even if a government takes the relevant decision in the coming months, and provided procedures are followed to the letter and the state machinery rises to the challenge, construction would be completed and such a unit would begin operating sometime around 2040, by which time SMR technology is expected to have matured.
The three phases
Under the International Atomic Energy Agency’s NEPIO (Nuclear Energy Programme Implementing Organization) process, which sets out the steps required to develop such units, countries must go through three phases.
- “Phase 1” is the phase Greece is in today. The state must assess whether nuclear energy has a place in the national energy balance, so the assessment report will address all the questions outlined above.
- “Phase 2”: the preparatory work that follows a potentially positive assessment. This includes issuing an international tender and market-led initiatives, such as finding a site within the parameters previously set by the state, establishing the supply chain and, of course, preparing the application for licensing and construction. It also covers steps the state itself must take, including putting a regulatory framework in place and staffing the regulator.
- “Phase 3” is when construction of the unit begins, it enters operation and its management by the country’s electricity system gets under way.