The United States will test small modular reactors (SMR) in Romania, which could cause environmental problems and pose a major risk of nuclear accident, according to a narrative published in the Bucharest press.
NEWS: “Joe Biden has announced that he will finance with 14 million dollars the engineering and design studies of the mini-nuclear power plants in Romania, although the obligation of these operations rests with the manufacturer. It is not known exactly what this money will be spent on, because the project is surrounded by total secrecy. Most likely, an attempt will be made to speed up the experimental location of modular reactors in Romania, given that they should be ready by 2028.
[…] As thermal power plants will have been completely shut down by 2025, it is very likely that the first modular reactor experiments will be conducted in Romania, and things will speed up, skipping important steps […] Because the reactors emit a certain amount of radiation, a radius of exclusion around them must be calculated. In the case of the former thermal power plant in Doicesti, in Dambovita County, where they have decided to place the first reactor, there are sites around that must disappear: a national road, a railway, an enterprise and several houses owned by the village people.”
NARRATIVES: 1. Romania is an American colony, exploited by the West. 2. The USA will conduct experiments in Romania, using novel nuclear technology.
LOCAL CONTEXT / ETHOS: The White House has announced that it will provide 14 million USD in support for engineering and design studies for Romania’s deployment of a modular reactor plant based (SMR). “This investment is meant to mobilize a multi-billion-dollar effort and showcase U.S. ingenuity in the advanced nuclear sector, accelerate the clean energy transition, create thousands of jobs and strengthen European energy security while upholding the highest standards for nuclear safety, security, and nonproliferation”, a White House Communique reads.
Thanks to the Romanian-American strategic partnership, Romania will be the first country in Europe to implement this innovative technology. In fact, it benefits from all the necessary certifications from the USA.
Both President Klaus Iohannis and Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca welcomed the decision made by the US presidential administration.
“Ensuring energy security is a common goal of the Strategic Partnership between Romania and the USA”, Klaus Iohannis wrote on Twitter on Sunday.
“The US’s decision to finance with 14 million dollars the preliminary stage of engineering and design studies for the development of small modular reactors (SMR) in Romania is an essential component of the development of the national civil nuclear program. Along with the construction of reactors 3 and 4 at the Cernavoda Power Plant, the use of the new type of SMR technology will help strengthen Romania's energy profile, in accordance with the European vision of environmental protection and decarbonization targets”, said Prime Minister Ciuca.
The nuclear power plant that the American company NuScale will build in Romania in Doicesti, Dambovita, could have up to 12 modular reactors, and each module has an installed capacity of 77MWh, which would provide Romania with 924 MWh, that is over 25 % of its total energy consumption.
Currently, Romania get about 20% of the energy it needs, i.e. 700MWh, from the two units of the Cernavoda nuclear power plant.
It should also be mentioned that Romania aims to align with the EU rules on green energy and the process of reducing CO2 emissions. Therefore, the implementation of this new technology by 2028 will make up for the decommissioning of many coal-fired powers plants, which are much more polluting.
PURPOSE: To make people fear potential nuclear accidents.
WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: Romania, seen as an exploited colony of the West, is a recurring narrative in the Russian propaganda, which Veridica has constantly debunked in recent years.
This meta-narrative is meant to arouse a false feeling of patriotism with a xenophobic and chauvinistic touch, especially among the older population who lived in the time of Nicolae Ceausescu.
The authors are trying to inoculate the idea that Romania is a second-hand nation, which will never be received in the Western club, because it de facto belongs to the East, controlled in a Cold War paradigm by Russia.
The new nuclear technologies that the American company NuScale wants to implement in Romania are certified in the USA, being the first of this kind to receive approval from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), at the end of a very extensive testing process that lasted over 10 years and cost over $ 500 million, requiring over 2 million manhours.
In its report, the US authority certified the SMR as safe and environmentally friendly.
In a response to Veridica, Nuclearelectrica specified that the location in Doicesti of the future plant that will operate on the basis of these Small Modular Reactors has received all the necessary approvals.
“The location of the former Doicesti thermal power plant has obtained all the necessary safety qualifications, in keeping with the design criteria and safety principles of the NuScale small modular reactors, and fully complies with the location criteria required by international and national standards”, the director of NuclearElectrica, Cosmin Ghita, told Veridica.
SMR technology is not exactly new, and NuScale small modular reactors are based on the pressurized light water reactor (PWR) technology, which has a history of over 60 years and is currently used commercially in over 300 PWR reactors worldwide.
NuScale modular reactors also have an advanced nuclear safety system that ensures shutdown and self-cooling for an unlimited period of time, without the intervention of an operator, or a computer, without needing additional water or electricity (without backup power supplies, such as emergency diesel generators).
“This means that even in the event of a power failure, the NuScale modular reactor can automatically shut down safely and can go into a state of maximum protection for the personnel and the environment for an indefinite period, without needing external power supplies. They have seven levels of protection, compared to the five existing at the current large power plants to ensure the highest safety standards for the population and the environment”, the NuclearEletrica Director also told Veridica.
Last but not least, NuScale technology has a very small exclusion zone and allows the location of the plant in the immediate vicinity of heat plants, for district heating, near homes, and can be located on the site of former decommissioned plants.
“Therefore, the risk for communities is very low as to the imposed limits. Hence the very small exclusion area, limited to the boundaries of the site. Thus, there is no impact on the health of the inhabitants. Nor for those who will live right outside the exclusion zone or at another distance”, Cosmin Ghita concluded.
GRAIN OF TRUTH: Romania will implement the US SMR technology this decade, being the first country in Europe to obtain this privilege, to be then followed by Poland and Bulgaria.
