Reading newspapers arouses various emotions in me, so sometimes I get angry, sometimes I rejoice, and there are occasions when I feel pity for the author of some articles. Poor people, what do they have to do. You have to justify your institution or your superior, and there is no argument or hint for that. Cowardly apparatchiks who are entrusted with the defense of someone and something are usually boiled in a sauce of irrelevant arguments in the hope that the more important and obvious ones will be buried. Thus, on March 13, 2025, the weekly "Vreme" published the denial of the Ministry of Mining and Energy to the text that Slobodan Bubnjević published in the same newspaper, seven days earlier. If they had kept quiet, they would have been better off. The Serbian people are suffering from accelerated oblivion anyway. They just continued the debate like this, they got an answer from Bubnjević, so I am very interested in whether they are preparing another answer, as convincing as the previous one.
Whoever wrote that unfortunate tuk na tuk in the Ministry of Mining and Energy bypassed the undeniable facts, which I would like to repeat here once again. Let's not forget: the Belgrade branch of the French company Ežis was in charge of supervising the works at the railway station in Novi Sad; The Ministry of Mining and Energy did entrust the Ezis company to make a preliminary technical study together with the French corporation EDF to consider the application of nuclear energy in Serbia. Aegis and EDF won the tender for the preparation of this study before the accident in Novi Sad (but also before the lifting of the Moratorium) and, to be honest, I expected the Ministry to make an announcement anyway, even with a neutral statement that it would wait for the results of the investigation and accordingly decide on further cooperation with the French, but that was not the case.
But there is worse than that. Based on what some newspapers published at the beginning of January this year, the news broke on the Public Procurement Portal that the contract of Ežis and other companies for supervising the construction of the railway was extended until the end of September this year, since they have not finished the work yet. This has nothing to do with our nuclear program, but it's good to know.
And one more thing, before we touch on the main topic of this text. In the words of Marie Agnes Berche, director of business development in the international nuclear development sector at the French company EDF: "Ezis will analyze the possible different technologies that can be offered to the Government of Serbia and a comparison between them. The Government of Serbia will make a decision whether they are small modular power plants or a large nuclear power plant."
On the official website of the Ežis company, it is written that it is a "leading global architecture, consulting, construction engineering and operating firm". They have participated in the construction of several nuclear facilities, but only as builders, which can also be checked on their website. We can only hope that along the way they have learned enough about nuclear technologies to be able to advise us. And lastly: I ask all citizens of the Republic of Serbia who would like to get involved in the polemic about our nuclear program not to mention modular nuclear reactors as one of the promising possibilities that we should turn to. Otherwise, they will eliminate themselves from the conversation as illiterate.
THREE STAGES OF IMPLEMENTATION
Finally, the thing that I was so angry about: the authors of the text from the Ministry say that they did not start before the red light went out. They also agree that the red light was on and that the Law on the Prohibition of the Construction of Nuclear Power Plants had not yet been repealed, but the study that was ordered, as they say, falls into the permitted category: it is either basic research or research and development work, which is not prohibited by law. Let's not laugh. I am a nuclear engineer by profession, throughout my career I have been writing both papers and I am perfectly sure that the commissioned study cannot be subsumed under those two categories.
After several "hollow" arguments, we arrive at something much more solid. The Ministry says that they are being accused of non-transparency without any basis. Here, for example in the new Energy Law, the implementation of the nuclear program is envisaged in a strict and systematic way, using a three-phase approach, just as proposed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (I kind of prefer the abbreviation IAEA).
Finally a solid support: the IAEA - a United Nations agency with a noble mission to offer its expertise on all nuclear topics. The Agency's authority is indisputable. The written recommendations issued by the IAEA actually divide the construction of a nuclear facility into three phases. It seems that the Ministry diligently clarified the literature. But did they compare it with what has been done to us in the last year, since the first sudden announcement by the president that we are willing to step into the nuclear future? Well, let's see in turn, whether the red light was run here as well.
For countries entering into the very complex business of building a nuclear power plant, the procedures are elaborated in great detail in the written materials of the IAEA. All of them can be downloaded for free from the IAEA website in pdf format. The instructions are arranged in four levels, from Basic Principles to Technical Reports. There are nineteen units (infrastructural issues), each of which is dealt with in detail in the protocols. That makes dozens of books of a few hundred pages each. Those three stages of realization of the nuclear program defined in the mentioned books are respectively:
Before the project activity, where a detailed analysis is carried out on whether the construction of a nuclear power plant is necessary at all. If the conclusion is affirmative, as a result of the first phase, the community (both professional and wider) should be fully prepared both professionally and organizationally for the realization of the nuclear program.
The development of the project, where the community would reach a level where after making a political decision, it can enter into negotiations with bidders in order to choose the optimal solution.
Implementation activities, where the method of financing is determined, complete contracting is carried out and the construction itself is realized.
It is predicted that these three phases can last up to fifteen years, which has recently turned out to be a very optimistic estimate. In most cases, the construction of new power plants takes over twenty years, which dramatically increases costs.
"TELEPROMPTERS"
Of the nineteen units that the IAEA distinguishes in the project of building a nuclear facility, the first and most important is what is called the National Position. A national nuclear program should be adopted, in other words. As a first step, it is necessary to form a completely independent body, a government body that would have the task of implementing the nuclear program (NEPIO - Nuclear Energy Program Implementation Organization). That body then creates various working bodies with specific responsibilities. I especially underline the word "independent", which I'm not sure is possible in our country. That NEPIO should coordinate the work on all those nineteen units that must be implemented within the project.
Based on what could be found in our press, it would be said that we are somewhere near the end of the second phase. In March of last year, the president announced to us from Brussels that we need nuclear energy, he even initially decided on four modular reactors. In April, various documents were signed with the French, the Government adopted some of them, which means that we have almost finished the second phase. At the end of September last year, our minister of mining and energy appeared in a newspaper in front of a control panel and a bunch of monitors and declared: "The French will help us with nuclear plants, EDF is the best partner." So, the president and the minister saved us at least ten years and gently guided us through the first two phases of the nuclear project, without us even noticing. For now, we still don't see the third member of that independent organization that deals with the implementation of the program, but let's not get discouraged, let's believe in the nuclear and engineering competencies of the team. And how good a partner the French are, that's all there is to talk about. We can talk about that next time.
In the previous articles published in "Vremen" there was talk about going through red lights and speeding, which seems to be very beneficial to someone. This is nothing in relation to the implementation of the three phases that the Ministry refers to in its text. Well, the president and the minister "teleprompted" us, as some representative of the ruling coalition in the Parliament said, at least ten years in advance.
AND FROM THE PRESIDENT - POTATO
Hand on heart, it is a little late with those nineteen infrastructural units. Representatives of twenty institutions met in the Ministry of Mining and Energy and signed a Memorandum on cooperation in personnel training. Writers from the Ministry boasted about that in their text. After many years of fasting, all scientific and higher education institutions have responded in the hope that something will start to happen, even in the Ministry, which is very actively advocating for digging in the Core.
The Memorandum did not move further, and employees in higher education institutions received potatoes from the president instead of salary. Is there a better way to stimulate faculty professors to accelerate the training of new staff? And in all previous speeches regarding the nuclear program, we mostly heard the story about the lack of personnel, which is a painful truth. However, on the list of those nineteen essential units, personnel is somewhere in the tenth place in terms of priorities. Many more significant actions need to be implemented, and there are no words about it. However, I hope that the body responsible for the implementation of the nuclear program also thinks about it. And finally, instead of concluding, let's go back to running through the red light. Due to haste and very likely corruption, the canopy fell and killed sixteen people. The way they started our nuclear program and selected strategic partners was not a rush. Rather, it could be said that it is a rush. If we're lucky, it might not cost us the lives of our citizens. However, the haste with which we were introduced to this story, the rich corrupt history of the Aegis company and the now quite certain inability of French companies to build a nuclear power plant within the stipulated time and for the agreed price in advance foreshadow the unnecessary expenditure of heavy billions, which will fall on the backs of our taxpayers.
Anyone with patience should check how the French got burned with their operator over their Flamanville 2 nuclear power plant. And just how the Finns fared with the French contractor over the Olkiluoto 3 power plant...
The author is a full professor of nuclear physics at the Faculty of Science and Mathematics in Novi Sad
