This really should not surprise me, but the EU bureaucracy is rising to new ‘Randian’ heights!
Here is the short version of the story: the Czech republic is good at producing electicity. In addition to hydro dams and other sources, it has invested heavily into nuclear power plants – over many decades, so that 1/3 to 1/2 of their electricity comes from nuclear power plants. The Czech energy policy has been so successful that now, green-invested Germany buys much of its electricity from the Czechs.
While some of the Czech nuclear power plants are brand-spanking new, some are older and pre-date Czech’s entry into the EU. These older plants use uranium fuel enriched in Russia.
So far, so good.
Then, Czrch became a member of EU.
Still OK.
Except that now, the EU bureaucrats came and told the Czechs they will have to shut down the power plant(s) that use Russian enriched uranium, because there is a pre-existing EU regulation that only EU enriched uranium may be used in EU nuclear power plants…
From TheReferenceFrame (note: Temelin and Duchovany are Czech nuclear power plants):
‘Temelín – with its combined Russian-American design – was opened after the fall of communism, in 2002 (although the construction began in 1981), and it was a frequent target of attacks by the Austrian Luddite activists. However, Dukovany (constructed started 1974, opened in 1985-1987) which has apparently invited almost no opposition just came under a vicious assault by the EU bureaucrats.
…
We are learning that the Europeans are not allowed to buy uranium enriched outside of the EU due to some strange paragraph agreed upon at the 1994 EU Corfu Summit (island in Greece). Holy cow. How many shocking ghosts of this magnitude does the EU have? We weren’t members of the EU at that time and the citizens who were deciding about our EU membership in a referendum were not told that “Yes” could mean that some stunning assholes could get a weapon to close our nuclear power plants because of some silly sentence okayed by some drunk and corrupt jerks at an island belonging to a country that shouldn’t have been in the EU at all. If this information were the case, I would consider the referendum to be fraudulent.’
Note: for some reason, completely hidden to me at this late (early?) hour, I cannot get the link to work. If you follow it, just delete the ‘xanthippa-blog’ bit at the front and you’ll get it. Or, just copy and paste this: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002555582
It really is very funny and worth the read.
Once I can get the link to work, I’ll delete this ‘note’ bit…