Slovenia closes the Krsko nuclear power plant: risk of radioactive leak
Slovenia's only nuclear power plant in Krsko (NEK), jointly owned by Slovenia and Croatia, was shut down early Friday due to a leak in the containment building, the company said on its website.
“The Krsko nuclear power plant was shut down today, at 05:30 (03:30 GMT), and was placed in a safe so-called hot-standby state,” the company said.
Teams of experts have begun working to pinpoint the location of the leak, the company said, adding that it will be able to estimate the time for repairs and restarting the plant once the source of the leak is identified. Therefore the closure may not be of a very short period and may extend until the winter.
NEK announced on Thursday that it would shut down the plant after finding the leak in the primary system inside the containment building, even though the leak was below technical specification limits.
NEK, in eastern Slovenia near the border with Croatia, produces more than six billion kilowatt hours of electricity per year, covering about 20 percent of electricity demand in Slovenia and 16 percent in Croatia.
NEK was built in cooperation with the American company Westinghouse Electric Corporation and began operating in 1982, so it definitely cannot be called a modern power plant. In 2016, Slovenia and Croatia agreed to extend its lifespan by 20 years until 2043. The power plant produces just under 700 MW of electricity and there will be a referendum in Slovenia to decide whether or not to double it.
However, it is not a very modern structure which had already had problems in 2008 that had called into question its safety and which had been followed by works.
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The article Slovenia closes the Krsko nuclear power plant: risk of radioactive leak comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/la-slovenia-chiude-la-centrale-nucleare-di-krsko-rischio-di-fuga-radioattiva/ on Sat, 07 Oct 2023 13:42:14 +0000.