HN: ČEZ's vagueness about Temelín completion is unacceptable

Prague, July 10 (CTK) - The joint arrogance of Czech power and experts who are reluctant to play an open game with tax-payers and citizens on the completion of the nuclear power plant in Temelin is unacceptable also with regard to the Fukushima disaster, Daniel Anyz has written in daily Hospodarske noviny.

The government opened on July 3 the bids submitted by U.S. Westinghouse, French Areva and the Czech-Russian consortium Skoda JS, Gidropress and Atomstroyexport. The costs of the construction of the third and fourth blocs are estimated at 200 to 300 billion crowns.

Anyz writes in Monday's issue of Hospodarske noviny that the government and the state-owned CEZ power company claim that the country cannot do without an extensive use of nuclear energy that is to cover up to a half of energy consumption in the future.

This can hardly be opposed by modern people who want to use electric power in cooking, lighting, heating or cooling their homes, but they should know as much about the project as possible, Anyz writes.

He writes that the government as well as CEZ have as yet refused to say what weight particular criteria will have in the assessment of the bids, what will be less and what more important for CEZ, or what will be possibly of paramount importance.

Will it be the price, the transfer of the technological know-how, participation of Czech firms in the project, or security criteria? Anyz asks.

He writes that the public is entitled to such fundamental information, it must insist on it and nothing can prevent its release.

Claims about that these criteria cannot be published beforehand over a possible violation of the rules of the competition are but secondary arugments and excuses that make the impression as if the state and CEZ do not want the lay public to follow their steps, Anyz writes.

He writes that coincindentally, an independent commission that the Japanese parliament assigned to look into the causes of last year's disaster of the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, has just published its report.

It dismissed the claim by the plant's operator TEPCO that the earthquake alone did not much damage Fukushima. It wrote that TEPCO knew minimally from 2006 that it must better secure the plant against a strong earthquake, Anyz reminds.

This was not done, according to the commission, over the "silent agreement" of the interests of the operator, the state and the regulatory office who all promoted nuclear energy as entirely safe, Anyz writes.

He writes that this was also made possible according to the report by the Japanese society's culture of reflexive obedience, unwillingness to challenge the authorities, loyalty to the plan set and group thinking.

Anyz writes that this is painful reading for the Japanese while it should be a lesson for the Czechs.

It is absurd that CEZ boasts of spending "tens of millions" of crowns on safety measures with which to prevent anything from the three firms' bids from leaking into unauthorised hands, while at the same time it refuses to say how important criterion the safety of the nuclear power plant alone will be for it.

Czech society need not and must not accept this, it is in its own interest, the more so that all three firms were stressing how cheap they will be when handing over their bids, Anyz writes.

In the case of Temelin a discount could really fatally raise the price, he adds.

($1=20.769 crowns)