Historical calendar – the anniversary of the Warsaw government's adoption of resolution 204 on putting the atomic Power Plant Żarnowiec into liquidation. This meant freezing for decades, the Polish atomic program.
Today in our calendar we will look at the past of the inception and collapse of atomic power in Poland.
In the 1960s, erstwhile the energy situation of the Polish People's Republic deteriorated, and especially the country fell out in terms of the electricity supplied per capita, respective atomic power plants were considered as 1 of the solutions. The breakthrough in this issue occurred in the late 1960s and 1970s with the improvement of a WWER-440 reactor task in the russian Union.
It was a classical force water reactor, characterized by low construction and operation costs, simplicity of operation while ensuring a advanced level of safety. An additional advantage of the task was the fact that a very large part of the components could be produced in Poland. A resolution on the construction of a atomic power plant with specified reactors was adopted. Its location was established at Żarnowicki Lake in the village of Krotoszyn in Pomerania.
The choice of the Żarnowiecki Lake area was dictated primarily by the favourable geological, meteorological and demographic conditions there, with a advanced energy request in northern regions of the country.
In 1978 a contract for a method task was concluded. Its specificity provided that the power blocks of the WWER-440 kind of russian construction were to cooperate with the engine area designed by the Warsaw Office of Energy Studies and Projects "Energy Project". Engineering was to usage turbines of kind 4K-465 from the Elbląch Zamech plant and GTHW-600 generators, manufactured under the licence of the Swiss company ABC by the Lower Silesian Power Plant “Dolmel” from Wrocław.
The plan of the gym takes into account all the standards established by the global Atomic Energy Agency and all the control procedures required at each phase of construction by a peculiar quality assurance system, supervised by the State Atomic Energy Agency and modelled on American systems.
Construction works began in 1982, Initially, the site was prepared for foundation, then construction facilities were built, specified as warehouse halls, technological boiler room, hydrophore, sewage treatment plant, canteen, social buildings, concrete nodes, materials quality laboratories, tunnels for power plant installation.
A meteorological station was besides erected with a 205-meter test apparatus mast, called the External measurement Centre. Climate studies and possible environmental impacts of power plants were to be conducted here long before the foundation of the power blocks began.
The licence to build the first phase of the power plant was received from the president of the State Atomics Agency in 1985. It was a green light for the beginning of the right works – after the foundation plate was poured, it continued to build buildings of the first 2 power blocks utilizing alleged spatially armed blocks, supplied from Gdynia. Construction in this technology was somewhat akin to building structures from blocks – empty, cubic blocks were laid in the required way and then filled with concrete. akin construction techniques are utilized present in any modern EJ III generation.
With the start of the first construction works at the atomic Power Plant "Żarnowiec", in April 1982, Polish society was becoming increasingly afraid about identifying the atomic power plant with the atomic bomb. The press articles appearing at that time to convince of specified a mistake were not well accepted. Although their authors were recognized experts in the field of atomic science, the fact of publication in authoritative media prompted them to be recognized as propaganda.
Additionally, well-received independent underground media argued that the atomic power plant built in cooperation with the russian Union would not be safe. After the atomic accident in Chernobyl, concerns and social protests against the construction of the atomic Power Plant "Zarnowiec" increased significantly.
Opposition and environmental organisations have been powerfully active in the protests, frequently created only to take action against construction and financed by anti-nuclear organisations from Western countries. Protest actions, pickets, flyers were sold and real information was not always distributed. It was rather common to claim that the gym built in Żarnowiec is identical to that of Chernobyl and that its launch would constitute an inevitable threat of comparable catastrophe.
In 1987, after a period of apparent stabilisation, as a consequence of badly implemented reforms, the PRL economy plunged into crisis. There were problems with the financing of the "Zarnowiec" power plant, which resulted in the suppression of works to specified an degree that only existing constructions were secured in late 1988, without erecting fresh ones. The deep economical crisis and the resulting increasing social discontent contributed to the political and economical transformation in Poland.
On December 17, 1990, the fresh democratic government of Tadeusz Mazowiecki adopted a resolution on the establishment of the investment “Elektrownia Jądrowa Żarnowiec in construction” in the state of liquidation. Dismantling and scrapping of already purchased power plant equipment has started.
According to Tadeusz Syrian, Minister of manufacture in the government of Tadeusz Mazowiecki the influence on the decision to liquidate the construction of the atomic Power Plant Żarnowiec had:
- unnecessary interior energy balance
- dubious profitability compared to conventional power plants
- ambiguity of safety issues – regardless of the negative for public opinion
One of the Syrian conclusions said: EJZ is an investment that is unnecessary for the Polish energy strategy in the horizon of 10 to 20 years, and then there is no certainty that atomic energy will be needed.
Previous entry from our calendar is available Here.
