Unfortunately for Americans, money isn’t the only thing needed to race with Russia on nuclear power.
Against the background of the completion of the construction of the Belarusian NPP in Belarus, the United States saw a lot of opportunities in Eastern Europe. In just a few weeks, the United States signed an agreement on the construction of a new reactor with Romania, and also reached agreements in the field of nuclear energy with Poland and Bulgaria.
As noted by the Bloomberg agency, the advantage of the Americans lies in the availability of large financial resources. However, politicians in the American initiatives today are much more than common sense, the analyst of the Bulgarian Center for the Study of Democracy Martin Vladimirov is sure.
“Even if the United States is trying to fight the economic intervention of Russia and China, these projects do not correspond to the logic of the market, which means that they will require impressive government incentives”, — the expert explains.
In this regard, US activity does not bother Russia, a source close to the Russian energy industry told reporters. He noted that American projects in Europe will be limited to service agreements.
Moreover, if Romania is indeed committed to rebuilding an existing reactor with US support, Poland and Bulgaria are less reliable candidates. These countries lack political will and, not least, economic opportunities.
But even if the Americans start working on their nuclear projects in Eastern Europe, delays are inevitable. Many may even be closed prematurely. In this sense, Russia and China have an advantage, which was mentioned even in the report of the US Department of Energy. Russian and Chinese companies offer the signing of complex contracts. So they managed to completely oust the United States from the market for the construction of nuclear power units.
