Nuclear Monitor #920
Martin Mittendorfer, campaigner at Greenpeace Slovenia
On 24 October, the Slovenian parliament canceled a consultative referendum on the support of a second nuclear power plant in Krško (shorter JEK2), just a day before the official campaign was set to begin. This marks a temporary win for a coalition of local NGOs, which includes Greenpeace Slovenia, Umanotera, PIC, Focus and others, who have argued since the spring that the goal of such a referendum is to manipulate the people into supporting an enormous and dubious investment, which would serve the interests of the Slovenian political elite and nuclear lobby, not the majority of the citizens. As a result of the opponents continuous campaign and to an even larger extent thanks to the machinations of the politicians, which have come to light in past weeks, public support for JEK2 has sharply dropped. Support for the project, which would be the largest single investment since Slovenian independence, fell by almost 20 percent points in the span of only half a year – and the public’s opposition to the project doubled.
The opponents of the referendum and JEK2 have clearly shown through public interventions that a second nuclear plant is far from being the only option for the future of Slovenian energetics, contrary to what the politicians and the state-owned investor, GEN energy, propagated. The ruling liberal coalition (excluding the smallest party, the Left) in this instance banded together with the conservative parliamentary opposition with the exclusive aim to win a referendum, but this did not help them. The reason is that there is nothing known for certain about the subject people were supposed to vote on. All the information about the project is coming from the investor, which has a vital interest in building the plant and has earmarked 1,5 million euros only for referendum propaganda.
It is not known who would supply the reactor – there is talk about Westinghouse (US), EDF (France) and KHNP (South Korea) – and how much it would cost: estimates range around 15 billion euros, but this is excluding financing costs and excluding any delays, which are almost certain with such projects. The problem of the disposal of nuclear waste is also not solved and is severed by the fact that the Croatian side is obliged to take care of half of the waste, but it does not cooperate with Slovenian authorities and the whole accumulation of four decades of waste is still on the Slovenian side of the border.
Given the rapid development of sun and wind energy it is an even bigger question if the new nuclear plant, estimated to have from 1100 to 1600 MW of capacity, could compete at the market and not make losses since the first day of operation. More than a decade ago, Slovenian politicians banded together in support of building a new lignite power plant, with the process becoming a national symbol of corruption. Just as NGOs and experts warned before it was built, the thermal power plant, besides being harmful to the environment, has hardly ever made any profit, with the exception of the energy crises a few years ago when prices of electricity on the market were high. The JEK2 investment would be 10 or 15 times bigger than the investment in the coal power plant and is posing a similar problem, as the investor has admitted itself: for the economic viability of the new nuclear reactor the prices of electricity on the market must not drop by more than a third from the current levels – and that only under the most optimistic scenarios for financing of the project. In other words, for the investment to be successful in economic terms, it needs high electricity prices.
Looking beyond mere economics, opponents of JEK2 and the manipulative referendum demanded independent and scientific studies regarding different energy transition scenarios to be presented, with much more focus on renewable energy. They expressed concerns that one single large-scale investment into a second nuclear reactor would derrail much needed development of renewable energy sources and the electric grid. They demanded that climate action must be taken now – 20 or 30 years, when a reactor could be built, is much too long of a wait.
These calls were met by deaf decision-makers. The whole political process of investment planning and referendum preparation is far from transparent and democratic. The Minister of the Environment, Climate and Energy Bojan Kumer, who should by his function lead the state’s energy policy, publicly expressed doubts about rushing into a final decision on JEK2. His ministry was cut off from the process and the power regarding all decisions related to JEK2 was concentrated in the hands of Danijel Levičar, who holds a political function of state secretary for the national nuclear programme in the prime minister’s cabinet since the summer of 2023. Levičar came to the prime minister’s office directly from the post of a business director of GEN energy, owner of the Slovenian part of the Krško nuclear power plant and the foreseen investor in JEK2, while the prime minister Robert Golob himself in 2022 climbed to the top of political hierarchy from the ranks of GEN-I, which is part of the state-owned energy conglomerate, led by GEN energy.
Levičar acts in the sole interests of the nuclear lobby and has already met with representatives of Westinghouse, EDF and KHNP. He presents JEK2 as the only option and is not shy of using statements, such as: “33 states have nuclear energy production – and these are 33 developed states. 160 states, mostly non-developed, do not have nuclear energy. Do we want to be Ghana, is this the question?”
Just how manipulative and non-democratic the whole referendum idea was, became clear on 17 October. Journalists of the main political show in the country on public television, Target, revealed audio proofs that the representatives of parliamentary groups conspired behind closed doors on how to outwit the people. Although the MPs knew that by including JEK2 in the resolution on the long-term peaceful use of nuclear energy before the consultative referendum they violated the Law on Referendum and People’s Initiative they did it anyway. The politicians decided to push the project through in any case, inscribing it in a parliamentary resolution, but afterwards they wanted to roll the responsibility for their own decision on the citizens with the referendum.
It was this political scandal that finally popped the cherry. It was a scandal that contributed to the failure of the referendum to a much larger extent than all the rational arguments of the opponents. The scandal caused the main opposition party to call off its support for the referendum and soon the other three parties followed, as they got too scared of losing the referendum and so endangering their project. When Mediana, the most credible polling agency in Slovenia, did a poll on the public support for the JEK2 investment in march this year, more than 63 percent were in favor of JEK2 and only 18 against. But after half a year of civil society actions and arguments against the project and after the political scandal of parliamentary machinations behind people’s backs broke out, at the end of October the same agency got a drastically different result. Now only 45 percent are in favor of JEK2 and already 37 percent against.
The temporary success of referendum and JEK2 opponents lies in the fact that by canceling the referendum the political elite admitted its own wrongdoings and admitted it is not the right time to have a vote on a subject that is so shrouded in secrecy. But the success is only temporary as the politicians and the investor are determined to push the project through, which would cost well beyond a whole yearly budget of Slovenia. This time they only got too scared of the consequences of their own mistakes. This is why the civil society organizations are continuing to demand comprehensive data and analyses of energy scenarios that would show alternatives to the solely nuclear direction. They are also demanding the termination of the post of the secretary for nuclear program, as this could be the first step of opening an impartial public debate. Last but not least, they demand an end to all the activities regarding the JEK2 project.
