Paper: Good offer needs to be made to people about nuclear power
Postimees interviewed Kalev Kallemets who is in charge of investigating whether nuclear power should be introduced in Estonia, he said a good offer needs to be made to local people and that they agree to a reactor being built in their area.
Postimees writes that Kallemets, a former Reform Party member, has joined Fermi Energia along with former Eesti Energia head Sandor Liive "and a handful of nuclear scientist" to investigate the possibility of building a plant in 2030, and preparatory work and analysis is currently ongoing which suggests 55 percent of people support considering the idea.
Kallemets said building a reactor in a nature reserve or densely populated area is obviously out of the question, but by the sea is one option, "although a recent study showed that nuclear power is most positively viewed in Tartu, the Emajõgi River is out of the question because the river is too small," Kallemets said.
One of the biggest challenges is getting local people on board wherever it is built, and he wants to avoid the same fate as the pulp mill which was planned to be built near Tartu but did not have the support of local people, "empty promises will do nothing! We must make a concrete and good offer," he said.
Kallemets acknowledged that people may be wary about the idea of nuclear power because of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, but said Estonians, who have a high trust in technology, should look towards good examples of what it can do in Finland and Sweden instead and that it is one of the safest forms of energy, adding an Estonian plant would be smaller than a Finnish plant and estimates it could cost €900 million.
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Editor: Helen Wright