Well, they did it. Despite 170,000 people expressing their opposition, the Turkish Parliament yesterday voted in favour of the agreement between Turkey and Russia to build four nuclear reactors at Akkuyu on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast.
Opposition party member Ali Riza Ozturk shows the 170,000 anti-nuclear signatures in Turkey’s Parliament (© Greenpeace)
As is usual with nuclear deals, the details of the agreement reveal just how ludicrous it is. The reactors will be built, owned and operated by the Russian nuclear industry with Turkish partners. So much for nuclear power providing energy security. Turkey is making itself reliant on Russian expertise and nuclear fuel for its energy needs.
Not only that but, as you would expect, the economics of the deal are pitiful. Tetas, the Turkish grid company, is committed to a 15-year deal to buy electricity from the reactors at a price of US$124 per megawatt hour. That, unbelievably, is more than double the market prices for electricity across the EU right now. So much for nuclear power being affordable and competitive.
Of course, when it comes to projects of this kind - especially in Turkey where previous attempts to join the nuclear club have been a comedy of legal challenges, rigged bidding processes and record-breaking costs – it isn’t worth raising one’s expectations. There still are many obstacles in the way of four nuclear reactors being built in Turkey on time and on budget, if at all.
Here at Greenpeace we’ll be continuing the fight to make sure it never happens.
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