Paks nuclear plant project

Croatia LNG terminal launch key step forward in Hungary gas supply, says foreign minister

hungary Kadri Simson

The inauguration of Croatia’s LNG terminal on the island of Krk is an important step forward in securing Hungary’s gas supply, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said after a videoconference with European energy commissioner Kadri Simson on Tuesday.

Hungary is set to receive an annual one billion cubic metres of liquefied natural gas from January 1, 2021, the minister told MTI.

He noted that the European Commission contributed 100 billion euros to the construction of the LNG terminal.

Szijjártó expressed hope that Croatia would consider expanding the capacities of the terminal if its targets are met, adding that

LNG could then play an even larger role in in Hungary’s energy supply.

He also noted that Hungary’s gas delivery agreement signed with Shell is the country’s first long-term energy deal that does not involve Russian energy suppliers.

Szijjártó said his talks with Simson also touched on the construction of Hungary’s Paks 2 nuclear power plant.

Hungary believes the European Union’s Green Deal goals and targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions can only be met if nuclear power is counted as an environmentally friendly energy source, he said. This is a matter of constant debate within the EU, he said, noting that half of the bloc’s member states use nuclear energy while the other half oppose it.

“The facts are on our side,” the minister said.

“Nuclear energy is a clean, cheap and safe form of energy.”

The Paks 2 project complies with all European laws and Hungary is in constant consultation with the EC during the construction, he said.

Paks nuclear plant
Read alsoPaks 2 nuclear power plant gets energy office permit

Paks 2 nuclear power plant gets energy office permit

Paks nuclear plant

Hungary’s energy regulatory authority (MEKH) has given its permit for the construction of the Paks 2 nuclear power plant, the agency said in a statement on Friday.

Atomerőmű Zrt, the company responsible for the project, submitted an application for a construction permit to MEKH in October 2020, the statement noted.

After examining the contents of the application to ensure that it complies with the relevant legislation, MEKH said construction of the plant with a nominal capacity of 2,524 megawatts can proceed, it added.

The agency considered the security of supply to the electricity network and the procedures related to the security of the nuclear technology carried out by the National Atomic Energy Agency in the course of its assessment, the statement said.

István Mittler, the Paks 2 project’s communications director, told MTI that

the MEKH permit was of “paramount importance”, similarly to such specific permits as the environmental permit and the site permit, preconditions for the construction, production, procurement and installation of the new blocks, as well as for the construction permit issued by the National Atomic Energy Agency.

Rosatom Director General Alexey Likhachev
Read alsoRosatom DG visits Paks for progress update

Hungary leader in protecting nuclear assets, says Minister Szijjártó

international conference on nuclear security in Vienna

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) greatly appreciates Hungary’s efforts in recent years to guarantee the security of the country’s nuclear assets, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó told an international conference on nuclear security in Vienna on Monday.

The IAEA also appreciates Hungary’s activities around the world in this regard, as well as the international investment at its sole nuclear power plant at Paks, he said, noting that US, German and French companies have won tenders in the project “which has grown to become a platform for large-scale East-West economic cooperation”.

Szijjártó noted that climate policy is at the heart of international discourse, focusing on ways to reduce emissions and to meet European and global climate policy targets.

“It’s by now broadly accepted that it would be impossible to reach climate targets without the use of nuclear energy,” he said.

“Hungary is a leader in this matter because we are currently preparing the construction of a new nuclear block which will guarantee the security of the country’s energy supplies in the long term while conserving our achievements in reducing public utility fees.” “We insist on our standpoint that discrimination against nuclear energy is unacceptable and every country has the right to compile its own energy mix,” he added.

Hungary’s climate targets can be met through national and European measures thanks to nuclear energy and renewable energy, including solar energy, the minister said.

Szijjártó noted

the importance of protecting nuclear assets in light of the heightened risk of terrorism.

Hungary co-chairs the Nuclear Security Contact Group (NSCG) and next year the country will host a high-level meeting of the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GICNT), Szijjarto noted. “These two facts also clearly demonstrate that Hungary’s efforts in the area of nuclear protection are globally recognised,” he added.

Budapest, Chain Bridge, view
Read alsoBudapest residents have the cheapest energy in the EU

Hungarian opposition parties slam government nuclear, sustainable energy policy

paks

The opposition LMP and Párbeszéd parties on Tuesday slammed what they called the government’s anti-wind power policy and the upgrade of Hungary’s sole nuclear plant in Paks, in central Hungary.

Speaking at a joint press conference of the green LMP and the Párbeszéd parties, Párbeszéd lawmaker Olivio Kocsis-Cake said the government was calling for a “Christian, conservative green policy” of which nuclear energy is an important element but that snubs wind power. Such a green policy, in Párbeszéd’s view, does not exist, Kocsis-Cake said.

Kocsis-Cake said

the government policy was dragging its foot in phasing out traditional energy production and introducing sustainable energy production.

The 4,000 billion forints (EUR 11.8bn) allocated for the upgrade of the Paks power plant should be ploughed into energy efficiency programmes and sustainable forms of energy, he said.

The lawmaker called for the nuclear power plant that is currently operating to be moth-balled at the end of its lifecycle, adding that planned additional reactor blocks under the Paks 2 project were unnecessary.

Párbeszéd has submitted proposals to parliament on setting up an independent ministry for environmental protection and on scrapping a decision the party says effectively “bans” building wind power turbines, he said.

Péter Ungár, the lawmaker of green LMP, noted the government has failed to give an explanation for banning the construction of further wind turbines, a cheap source of energy.

Meanwhile, the costs of the Paks upgrade grow year by year, Ungar added.

Hungarian FM advocates nuclear energy at Prague conference

Paks nuclear plant

Without the use of nuclear energy, Europe will not be able to achieve its objective of climate neutrality by 2050, Hungary’s foreign minister said in Prague on Tuesday.

The European Union must therefore end its practice of negative discrimination of nuclear energy, Péter Szijjártó told the 6th Central and Eastern Europe Nuclear Industry Congress.

He said

the EU must not only ensure uniform criteria, but even promote nuclear energy, and argued that nuclear power plants can produce electricity safely, in a “green”, cheap and predictable way in the long term.

Hungary is a leader in fighting climate change, Szijjártó said, adding that the country’s nuclear investments could ensure that 90 percent of its electricity production would be carbon-neutral by 2030.

“This is a unique achievement in all of Europe,” he said, adding that there were only 21 countries in the world that have been capable of achieving growth while also reducing their emissions of harmful gases.

Szijjártó said

Hungary has made it clear over the past decades that it is serious about its use of nuclear and clean energy.

Hungary’s upgraded nuclear power plant in Paks will help save 17 million tonnes in carbon emissions, he said, noting that Hungary’s transport sector produces an annual 12 million tonnes in CO2 emissions. In other words, he said, the two new blocks in Paks will help save 1.5 times that amount.

Given that “nuclear energy production is a very progressive, future-oriented and modern way of producing electricity”,

Szijjártó said, the Visegrad Group countries will undertake further nuclear energy projects.

Rosatom DG visits Paks for progress update

Rosatom Director General Alexey Likhachev

Rosatom Director General Alexey Likhachev paid a visit to the Paks nuclear power plant on Tuesday to review progress on an upgrade there.

Russia’s Rosatom is the general contractor for the construction of two blocks at the plant, Hungary’s only source of commercial nuclear energy.

Likhachev said 

the project had reached an important stage with the handover of technical documentation.

Work is under way to produce the documentation that must be submitted as part of the application for the implementation licence, he said, adding that a milestone in that process was achieved with the presentation to project company Paks II of the technical plans for the two new blocks.

János Süli, Hungary’s minister without portfolio in charge of the Paks upgrade, said

Paks II experts are reviewing the material submitted by Rosatom.

When they are finished, the documents will be passed on to the National Atomic Energy Office (OAH) and to international experts the office has asked to weigh in, he added.

Likhachev said the team of planning experts will be augmented with the aim of submitting the full documentation necessary for the implementation licence to Paks II by spring 2020. The application for the licence can then be submitted in the summer, he added.

Paks nuclear block back online after repairs

paks

The number four block of the Paks nuclear power plant went back online on Sunday after repairs.

The block shut down automatically on Thursday after a device monitoring electrical measurements malfunctioned, Hungary’s National Atomic Energy Authority (OAH) said.

The block is now operating at nominal capacity, the authority said, adding that the safety of the block was not compromised and the shutdown had no environmental impact.

Each of the plant’s four blocks has a nominal capacity of 500MW. Paks accounts for about half of domestic electricity production.

LMP calls for publication of government programme to fight climate change

climate protection

Green opposition LMP on Thursday called on Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to publish a government programme that has been used to apply for European Union funding for the fight against climate change.

Orbán told the opening meeting of parliament’s autumn session that Hungary’s economy could achieve carbon-neutral status by 2050, deputy group leader Erzsébet Schmuck told a press conference. Orbán also said that the government had informed the European Union that the implementation of its programme to achieve this would require funding of 50,200 billion forints (EUR 152bn), she added.

LMP is skeptical about Orbán’s promise, she said.

So far, he has “promoted the interests of the German car industry and the Polish coal industry in Brussels” instead of the interests of Hungarians, she added. The government is planning to explore hydrocarbon resources and coal mines instead of supporting renewable energy, Schmuck said. Instead of turning to renewable energy, the government wants to build the “dangerous and risky” Paks 2 nuclear power station project which “will be the most expensive investment of the century,” she added.

She said she had asked Orbán in writing to study an LMP proposal for climate emergency in Hungary.

She added that she had asked him to specify which points of the proposal he would support.

In response to a question, Schmuck said Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony was planning to announce climate emergency on the level of cities whereas LMP’s proposal was for the whole of the country. LMP proposes legislation on stopping climate change, measures to catch up with strict EU targets and a ministry dedicated to climate issues, she added.

Russian-Hungarian Summit: Gazprom, Rosatom leaders held talks in Budapest

gazprom

Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó met leaders of Russia’s national gas company Gazprom and Russian nuclear energy giant Rosatom for talks in Budapest on Wednesday.

After talks with Gazprom’s chief executive Alexei Miller, Szijjarto said that Hungary’s gas supplies had “never been this secure” and added that “for the first time in history Hungary’s gas storage facilities are full”.

According to a foreign ministry statement, Hungary now has 6.4 billion cubic metres of natural gas in reserve, which puts the country in a position to “start negotiations about supplies for the next heating season already”.

Szijjarto said he had agreed with Miller on resuming gas supplies next April, adding that Hungary would buy another 2 billion cubic metres of gas from Gazprom, the same amount as this year.

During talks with Rosatom leader Alexei Likhachev, Szijjarto said that obtaining a technical permit in October was a milestone in the upgrade of the Paks nuclear plant, and added that the next important step would be submitting an application for the implementation permit before June 30 next year.

Szijjarto said that the upgrade project offers “an important platform for East-West business cooperation”. He noted that the project would be implemented by Russian, US, German, French, and Hungarian companies and could ensure sufficient energy for a competitive national economy.

Russian-Hungarian Summit: Russian industry minister Manturov held talks in Budapest

Russian-Hungarian Summit: Ties between Lukoil and MOL will broaden

MOL-LUKOIL

Hungary and Russia have agreed to a settlement regarding the contamination of an oil pipeline in May, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Tuesday.

The contamination of the pipeline from Russia with chlorine in the spring was a one-off matter and the problem was resolved swiftly, chief executive of Hungarian oil and gas company MOL, Zsolt Hernádi, said at a news conference held together with Szijjártó and Lukoil’s chief executive Vagit Alekperov. Szijjártó said the relevant document would be ready to sign on Wednesday.

Also raised at the talks was broadening ties between Lukoil and MOL to include high value-added petrochemical cooperation, the minister said. 

Talks are also under way on oil storage in Hungary, he added.

Meanwhile, Szijjártó noted that natural gas storage was at a record high in Hungary, reaching 6.5 billion cubic meters for the first time this year — 100 percent of domestic capacity.

Referring to the expansion of the Paks nuclear power plant, the minister noted that preparations for the application for the construction permit were under way after approval of the technical plans. The document running to hundreds of thousands of pages will be submitted to the National Atomic Energy Agency by June 30, 2020.

He said the operation of new blocks at Paks was a precondition for the country’s competitiveness and environmental protection.

Szijjártó said

Hungary-Russia energy cooperation was smooth and fulfilled the country’s energy needs. Both sides are committed to long-term cooperation, he added.

Supplies from the south are not yet on tap since the relevant countries have not made the necessary decisions, he added.

Szijjártó said Russia’s energy cooperation with Hungary was not as significant as with western energy companies — despite sanctions — but it was tightening every year. Energy security is a national security issue, he said, so the government makes the related policies based on the Hungarian national interest.

Russian-Hungarian Summit: Ties with Russia concern Hungary’s interests, says FM Szijjártó

Russian Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova

Hungary-Russia economic ties are transparent and “in line with the interests of the Hungarian economy and domestic businesses”, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Tuesday.

Szijjártó told a press conference that whereas Europe highlighted its disputes with Russia, in fact western European states had quietly built close cooperation with Russia. The majority of Russia’s top ten trading partners are European Union or NATO members, Szijjártó said.

He noted that

Dutch-Russian trade had increased by 23 percent since 2017, French-Russian trade by 40 percent, and the trade between Germany and Russia by 56 percent.

Meanwhile, small countries have borne the brunt of the fallout of sanctions against Russia, he added.

Hungary has lost 8 billion dollars in export revenues due to those sanctions, he said, adding that Hungary’s current cooperation with Russia, however, would help to keep bilateral trade on a growth path.

Szijjártó praised investments and cooperation between the two countries’ companies and noted a contract worth over one billion US dollars a Hungarian-Russian consortium has won to produce 1,300 railway carriages.

The minister mentioned Hungarian pharma Richter, which is building a plant in Russia with a capacity to produce a 2 billion pills each year. He also mentioned other Hungarian investment projects in Russia, such as those by medical equipment producer Sanatmetal and animal fodder producer Agrofin, as well as construction of a meat processing plant and a dairy near Moscow as joint ventures with Russian partners.

Hungary is Russia’s fourth largest seed supplier, involving 60 Hungarian producers whose annual exports amount to 73 million euros, Szijjártó said.

Russian Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova called

Hungary a key partner in central Europe.

She said bilateral trade has increased by 30 percent in the past two years, its turnover reaching 7 billion dollars. She said energy is a crucial area of cooperation especially nuclear energy and Hungary’s Paks upgrade project.

Conference of Middle Eastern Christian church leaders starts in Budapest

Gas storage in Hungary full – UPDATE

szijjártó

All gas storage reserves in Hungary are fully topped up, guaranteeing domestic supplies for the winter, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Tuesday in Moscow.

“The situation of Hungary’s energy supply is at a turning point,” the minister said after meeting Gazprom chief executive Alexei Miller. “Never before has every single gas storage facility been completely full,” he said, adding that 6.3 billion cubic meters of gas is now being stored in Hungarian gas storage facilities.

“For the coming winter, Hungary’s gas supply has never been as safe and secure,” Szijjártó said.

He also noted that Hungarian energy company MVM and the Hungarian state were making money on the back of Gazprom renting 950 million cubic meters of gas storage for supplies to the south and west, he added.

Szijjártó said he had agreed with his Russian partners on starting “substantive” talks concerning supplies for 2020-2021. “We are now in a position to plan about a year and a half ahead,” he said.

Bulgaria’s authorities have signed the export permit under which Russian gas could be transported to Hungary vial Bulgaria and Serbia, the minister said, adding that an annual 10 billion cubic metres of gas could be obtained through that route.

Technical plan Paks expansion approved

Szijjártó has welcomed approval of the technical plan for the expansion of the country’s sole nuclear power station at Paks.

“This is a major milestone in preparations,” the minister told MTI.

“Now, more than 300 permits have been obtained, including the important environmental permit.”

The first three of the support buildings for construction have been granted a building permit and the first of these, the main contractor’s office building, is being built, he noted, adding that the timetable for elaborating the 300,000-page development licence — to be submitted to the licensing authority next summer — is well on track.

“Nuclear energy is crucial for Hungary’s competitiveness in terms of the country’s environmental commitments”, he said.

Szijjártó visited Moscow to attend the Russian Energy Week forum and participated in a roundtable on nuclear energy.

Foreign minister in NY: Hungary committed to peaceful use of nuclear energy

foriegn minister in new york

Hungary is committed to the peaceful use of nuclear energy, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó said at a conference on the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in New York.

Hungary reserves the right to determine its own national energy mix and the right to produce the energy it uses cheaply, cleanly and safely, Szijjártó told the event that focused on the CTBT’s entering into force.

He said that Hungary has attached great importance to the use of nuclear energy in recent decades, and will continue to do so, as it is an important criterion for the competitiveness of the country’s economy.

Today, Hungary provides more than 40 percent of its energy needs from nuclear sources, Szijjártó noted.

He said that Hungary is fully opposed to testing nuclear weapons worldwide and fully supports the implementation of CTBT. Szijjártó regretted that the termination of experiments had not yet been achieved in practice and urged countries that have not yet ratified the Treaty to do so as soon as possible.

Further, he stressed the importance of clearing the Korean Peninsula of nuclear weapons.

It must also be prevented that any dictator or terrorist organisation could gain access to nuclear weapons, Szijjártó said.

From this point of view, the UN has an important role to play, he said, adding that Hungary would provide all possible help for the UN to fulfil that role.

Cheapest energy that which we don’t use, says Hungarian President in NY

United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York

Addressing the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York on Monday, Hungarian President János Áder outlined Hungary’s achievements and future goals concerning climate policy and briefed world leaders on the country’s Virtual Power Plant scheme.

The philosophy behind the now 10-year-old programme is that “the cheapest energy is that which we don’t produce,” Áder told the summit.

The scheme aims to improve the energy efficiency of individuals, businesses and public institutions, he said.

“The programme has so far allowed us to save more than one quarter of the power output of the Hungarian nuclear power plant in the city of Paks,” the president said. “To put it in other words, we did not have to generate 6 percent of Hungarian electricity consumption from fossil fuels.”

The programme has so far been implemented in Italy, Britain and Romania, he said, expressing hope that it would be “just as successful there as it has been in Hungary”.

Áder also said that over the next three years, Hungary will support international climate finance by nearly 6 million dollars, part of which will go towards the Green Climate Fund.

He noted that Hungary was the first European Union member state to ratify the Paris climate accord, pointing out, at the same time, that CO2 emissions have only increased since 2015.

As regards Hungary’s climate policy goals, the president said Hungary will boost its solar energy capacity tenfold by 2030, phase out fossil fuel-based energy production and expand its nuclear power plant. These combined efforts will ensure that 90 percent of Hungary’s electricity production will be CO2-free by 2030, he added.

Further, Hungary aims to achieve a 30 percent increase in the energy efficiency of its buildings by 2050.

By 2030, public transport companies in cities with a population of more than 25,000 will only use electric busses. Hungary will also continue its reforestation programme, he said, noting that the country’s forests have doubled in size over the past 100 years. And by 2050, Hungary aims to increase the size of its forests by a further 30 percent, Áder said.

Concerning climate policy achievements, the president said Hungary has reduced its CO2 emissions by 32 percent since 1990 simultaneously to reducing its energy consumption and increasing economic growth. Last year, the Hungarian economy grew by 5 percent while emissions were down by 0.6 percent, he said.

He said Hungary’s per capita emissions were one of the lowest among industrialised countries, with those of the United States being 3.5 times as high. Hungary’s 24 largest cities have joined the most ambitious international climate zones and are members of the international climate protection cooperation scheme Under2.

Áder vowed that Hungary will do everything in its power to make sure that the goals of the Paris climate agreement are achieved.

Over the coming days, Áder is scheduled to hold bilateral talks with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, address the Sustainable Development Goals summit and meet with scientists at CUNY Hunter College.

Green opposition LMP lawmaker Erzsébet Schmuck said in reaction that she was overall disappointed with Ader’s address, but welcomed some of the president’s proposals.

“I have to say I’m disappointed with what the president had to say concerning carbon-dioxide emissions,” Schmuck, who attended the Climate Action Summit in person, said.

She admitted that Hungary had reduced its CO2 emissions by 32 percent since 1990 but added that emissions have been steadily rising since 2014.

Schmuck also expressed disappointment with plans regarding the use of nuclear energy.

“LMP and I constantly speak out against the upgrade of the Paks power plant, so the president spoke about commitments on which our views are different,” she said, stressing that her party did not see the increase of the use of nuclear energy as a viable solution.

Asked to comment on Áder’s pledge to increase solar energy capacity tenfold and close down coal plants by 2030, Schmuck said: “We obviously welcome the shutdown of coal plants, although we want this to happen before 2030 and we’d also prefer, for instance, if the government didn’t extend the life cycle of Hungary’s Mátrai [coal-fired] power plant.”

Is Budapest likely to become a deadly place?

Hungary plays key role in boosting nuclear security, says foreign minister

iaea Vienna Austria

Hungary plays an important role in boosting nuclear security, the foreign minister told the general assembly of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna on Monday, commenting on a request that Hungary preside over the Nuclear Security Working Group for another year.

“Terrorism and the threat of terrorism are growing worldwide with the emergence of uncontrolled migration waves,” Péter Szijjártó said. “This also increases nuclear threats, which is why it is important that Hungary has been asked to preside over the Nuclear Security Working Group for another year.”

In addition, Budapest will host a conference on global action against nuclear terrorism, the minister said.

Szijjártó said these developments were an acknowledgement of Hungary’s position as a leader in efforts to boost nuclear security.

He also said that as of this month,

Hungary is a member of the IAEA’s Board of Governors.

On another subject, Szijjártó said the use of nuclear energy also contributed greatly to energy security, which he called a “critical issue” for central Europe.

Nuclear energy covers around 50 percent of electricity demand in Hungary, and this share will increase with the expansion of the Paks nuclear power plant, he said.

For Hungary, this is a matter of competitiveness, Szijjártó said, arguing that increasing the use of nuclear energy meant the country would be less vulnerable to uncertainties on the international energy markets.

On the sidelines of the general assembly, Szijjártó held talks with his Argentine counterpart Jorge Faurie, Yeafesh Osman, Bangladesh’s science and technology minister, Kanat Aldabergenovich Bozumbayev, Kazakhstan’s energy minister, and Admiral Bento Costa Lima Leite de Albuquerque Jr, Brazil’s minister for energy and mines.

It’s over! Free charging of electric cars to end soon in Hungary

President: Hungary could achieve climate neutrality by 2050

By meeting several conditions, Hungary has a realistic chance of achieving climate neutrality by 2050, President János Áder said at the closing plenary session of a conference of economists in Nyíregyháza, in north-eastern Hungary, on Saturday.

This requires, among other things, the decarbonisation of almost 100 percent of the power generation industry, improving the energy efficiency of buildings, a higher utilisation of thermal energy, phasing out coal and significantly reducing emissions in the transport sector, Áder said.

The president called for a technology shift in the so-called carbon-intensive industries such as cement production and the steel and rubber industry and, in agriculture, for reducing methane emissions and improving the efficiency of fertilizers.

As for the transformation of the power sector, Áder said completing the upgrade of the Paks nuclear power plant and expanding solar power plant capacities were key conditions.

He said photovoltaic power generation was expected to double every year, just as it has in the past four years, and with this and the construction of the new block of the Pask facility, more than 90 percent of Hungary’s power generation would be carbon-free by 2030.

Hungarian, Czech super laser facilities to form consortium

Super laser research facilities in Hungary and the Czech Republic will form a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC), Innovation and Technology Minister László Palkovics said after meeting with Czech Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry and Trade Karel Havlicek in Prague on Monday.

Palkovics told MTI that the ERIC is expected to start operating in January 2020, and that other countries could join the consortium later. Italy is expected to join first, and a number of other countries, such as Germany, France and the UK, are also interested in the ERIC, he added.

The ELI (Extreme Light Infrastructure) research facilities in Szeged, southern Hungary, and in Dolni Brezany, on the outskirts of Prague, offer excellent conditions for researchers in a number of sciences in addition to physics and biochemistry, Palkovics said.

The ELI facility in Hungary focuses on experiments using ultrashort light pulses and the ELI facility in the Czech Republic experiments using ultrahigh intensity light. An ELI facility near Bucharest conducts photo-induced nuclear experiments.

The two ministers also discussed bilateral cooperation opportunities in the areas of energy, innovation and modern technologies.

Fielding a question on possible cooperation in the area of nuclear energy, Palkovics said an upgrade of Hungary’s Paks plant is further along than the planned expansion of the Czech Republic’s two nuclear power plants, but added that Hungary would be happy to share its experience.

Almost half of Hungary was evacuated in 2003 because of an accident in Paks nuclear PP

It started as a routine task: a German-French joint company had to clean the fuel elements at the Hungarian Paks-2 reactor. However, it almost ended in a Chernobyl-like nuclear disaster thanks to a series of grave human errors because of which radiation got into the environment.

Too much trust in the German-French company

In 1986, the biggest nuclear disaster in Chernobyl could happen because of the design problems of the RBMK-reactors and a lot of human errors. In Hungary, something similar happened during the cleaning of the fuel elements of the Paks-2 reactor on April 10, 2003.

According to atomcsapda.blog.hu, it all started with the fact that magnetite corrosion products started to coat the fuel rods of Paks-2 reactor, which affected the flow of coolant and thus, it brought down the efficacy of the reactor. Therefore, cleaning they had to be cleaned for which

a German-French joint company, the Framatome, was hired.

They had experience in such works; their cleaning vessel was already successfully used at Paks-2 in 2001.

The 467 MW Paks-2 was taken offline on 28 March for its annual refuelling and maintenance period during which some of the fuel elements were cleaned. In fact, the process happened under 10 metres of water but with a new cleaning vessel of Framatome never tried before.

On April 10, at 21:50, however, the radiation alarms turned on, and the operators thought that it has happened because one of the fuel rod assemblies was leaking. At 22:30, the reactor hall was evacuated because of increased radiation levels both there and in the cleaning system’s ventilation stack. At 02:15 the following morning, the hydraulic lock of the cleaning vessel lid was released to remove it but immediately

the dose rate increased significantly (6-12 millisieverts/hour).

As a result, radioactivity could get into the environment.

We could evade the nuclear disaster

Since one of the three lifting cables attached to the lid broke, it could have finally been removed only on 16 April. Scientists examining the cleaning tank observed that the fuel elements in the tank were damaged meaning that radioactive spent uranium fuel pellets from the fuel elements got into the bottom of the cleaning tank. Apart from the release of radioactive material, a concern was that the accumulation of a compact mass of fuel pellets could lead to a criticality accident, as the pellets were in a tank of neutron moderating water.

To prevent this, water containing neutron-absorbing boric acid was added into the tank together with ammonia and hydrazine to help with the removal of radioactive iodine-131. They were successful, and by the time the Austrian environmental NGO Global 2000’s Radiation Monitoring System arrived, the radiation level had already decreased below the stable background radiation.

According to the investigation of the Hungarian Atomic Energy Agency HAEA), the incident was caused by inadequate cooling of Framatome’s new cooling device which resulted in overheated fuel rods that broke the moment they were doused with 37 Celsius degree water when the lid was open. This could happen because the HAEA placed too much trust in the technology and knowledge of the Framatome Company; they wanted to save time, so they did not investigate documentation provided by the company deeply enough. Therefore, they allowed the procedure even though

it was clear that the cleaning system of the company had a fatal design flaw. 

In fact, the incident was classified to level 3 (“serious incident”) by the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES). The Paks-2 reactor remained out of service until 2004 while the radioactive and broken fuel rods were transported only in 2014 to Russia.