Schwerin/Danzig (dpa/mv) – Poland is pushing ahead with its plans to build nuclear power plants. In all likelihood, the country’s first nuclear reactor will be built near the Baltic Sea in the Pomeranian Voivodeship. As the Ministry of the Environment in Schwerin announced on Tuesday, the Polish authorities have now submitted the environmental compatibility documentation in part in German. This means that there is an opportunity to participate in the cross-border environmental compatibility procedure and every citizen of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania can submit a statement via the Internet or by letter. The deadline for this is December 13, 2022.
According to the Ministry of the Environment, the nuclear power plant will consist of three blocks with a total output of 3750 megawatts. The specific location has not yet been determined. The Danzig region, around 250 kilometers from the German border, is under discussion. According to the strategy paper “Poland’s energy policy up to 2040” presented at the beginning of 2021, construction of the first reactor block should start by 2026 at the latest, which should go online in 2033.
Unlike Germany, Poland wants to phase out coal with the help of nuclear energy. The country currently generates almost 80 percent of its energy from hard coal and lignite, which are harmful to the climate. Poland’s plans are met with unease in Germany. The federal government called for the integration into the nuclear power plant planning because potentially significant negative cross-border environmental impacts on Germany could not be ruled out, it said. Unresolved questions from the German point of view also relate to the establishment of a Polish nuclear supervisory authority and the interim and final storage facilities for spent fuel elements.
