Sofia. ‘This is not a rare case, we have such cases once every month’, the Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Agency Sergey Tsochev said in an interview for FOCUS News Agency.
There are such problems around the world and they are caused by having a radiation source inside metal scrap.
24 October 2008 Skopje _ In the following three months Skopje will decide whether to take part in the construction of the Bulgarian nuclear power plant at Belene that could solve Macedonia´s power shortages in the future.
Macedonia´s deputy prime minister Zoran Stavreski who recently visited Belene said this Friday in his column in the local daily Dnevnik that Macedonia "would participate by financing the project with a certain amount of money. In return, the country would receive part of the electricity produced".
Skopje. The possibility for a future participation of Macedonia in the construction of ther nuclear power plant Belene in Bulgaria will be a topic of discussion during the visit of the Macedonian delegation in Bulgaria, the Macedonian agency Makfax reports.
Macedonia has five more days to decide how it will deal with the energy crisis that is threatening the region. Experts believe that one of the more favourable options would be to strike a deal with Bulgaria on power supply through subventions from the new nuclear plant that is being constructed in Belene. The documents that Nova Makedonija has come across indicate that the financial construction of the Belene project -- which commenced on 3 September -- is drawing to a close and that the last package of the technical project should be approved by 15 September at the latest. This means that, unless an agreement is reached on our participation in the Belene project in the remaining few days, Macedonia will depend on the import of expensive electricity for decades, unless it gets involved in other serious energy investments. Generally speaking, this will have a negative effect on the population's standard of living because the price of every product is related to the price of the basic energy source -- electricity.
Macedonia, under international regulations applying to countries with nuclear waste, must construct a depot to store radioactive materials. However, opposition by residents of potential locations has thwarted the country from complying with the requirement. The struggle to find a depot site has continued for five years.
The latest case attracting public attention is that of Sopiste Municipality, outside Skopje, which refuses to allow construction of a depot on its territory. The facility would store residues from devices using radioactive elements -- such as old lightning rods or laboratory and X-ray residue. Currently, temporary dumps in unsafe urban locations, namely, the grounds of the Brazing Institute and former Radioisotope Centre, contain the country´s nuclear waste.
