FEATURE - Baltics woo west with fresh energy plans
Date: 16-Sep-99
Country: ESTONIA
Author: Jeff Coelho
Lithuania aims to close its Chernobyl-style nuclear plant and the three
states are pushing for a united Baltic energy system with physical links
to central and northern Europe as part of a drive to cut dependence on
Moscow.
Energy industry experts said that despite huge costs the Baltics would
not be able to face alone, conveying the correct politics of electrical
power could help sweeten talks about issues such as membership to the
European Union, or even NATO.
"That is the main reason why they are talking like this at the moment -
just to get Brussels to listen to them," Bo Kragelund, head of division
at the Danish Competition Authority told Reuters after an electricity
industry conference in Tallinn.
"Their main issue now is to get friends in Brussels, to get the
possibility of going into the EU and working on it from there, because
they can see it as an advantage," he said.
The 15-nation bloc opened EU membership talks with Estonia in March
1998, while Latvia and Lithuania are among the next wave of applicants
to begin accession negotiations in December.
BALTIC INDEPENDENCE FROM RUSSIAN ENERGY
The Baltic states, largely dependent on energy exchange with Russia,
want to expand their options away from Moscow which ruled the Baltic
republics for five decades until independence in 1991.
"We need to find a way to develop ties to the west, as well as keep the
possibilities open to trade in the east," said Janis Ositis, technical
director at DC Baltija, a joint venture of state power companies in the
three Baltic states.
He said political and economic support from Brussels would help make the
physical transition for a unified Baltic energy system possible.
"The result of these political activities could be a distinct physical
development, because physically it is clear how to do it," he said,
referring to much talked about plans to build power cables and natural
gas lines connecting to Europe.
The first phase of an underwater power cable from Estonia to Finland is
slated for operation in 2002. The Estlink cable is part of a wider plan
to integrate the Baltics with Nordic power pool members Finland, Norway,
Sweden and Denmark.
Lithuania, meanwhile, hopes to boost electricity exports to Europe via a
power line connecting it to Poland.
"Estonians and Lithuanians are looking for a possible market in the
west...but there is no great need for additional electricity in Finland
and Poland," said Jurgis Vilemas, director of the Lithuanian Energy
Institute.
"From that point of view the interconnections between Finland and Poland
are at least in this short-term period more political than economical,"
he said.
SCRAPPING REACTORS EARNS PRAISE
Lithuania won kudos from Brussels earlier in the month by setting 2005
as the deadline for decommissioning the first of its two reactors at the
Soviet-built Ignalina nuclear power plant.
Even though some nuclear experts say the plant is safe, its two RBMK
reactors are similar to the one that caused the 1986 Chernobyl disaster
in Ukraine when a reactor exploded, sending radioactive dust over
Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and parts of western Europe.
The cost of closing the first reactor was estimated at around $2.5
billion while projections for a full decommissioning of the plant ranged
as high as $4 billion, for which Lithuania says it wants financial
support.
Lithuania gets 80 percent of its electrical energy needs from Ignalina,
making it the most nuclear-dependent nation in the world.
Setting a deadline date for even a partial decommissioning underscores
Lithuania's desire to please the west, particularly when it had spoken
of building a new Ignalina plant with Soviet technology shortly after
independence.
Vilemas said the government had to give up something in order to open
the door for possible fast track EU entry talks.
"To promise one unit is some kind of compromise," he said, noting that
Lithuan