Energy minister Andrei Gerea said at a Mediafax conference that it is true that Romania does not yet have an energy strategy, but that at the European Union’s level there is also no common direction in this area, Business Review reported.
According to Gerea, as quoted by Mediafax, energy is the future and is an element of security, and if some countries use energy as a weapon, then “weapons are a necessary evil.” “We must build a flexible strategy to adapt to new challenges. It would have been great if we had a strategy of reindustrialization which we can rely on. For this reason we cannot link the two strategies, but we can build the pillars on which to develop it,” Gerea added.
If some countries use energy as a weapon, then weapons are a necessary evil.
In his view, the most important thing is for Romania to have enough energy sources and production capacities, and in this context he listed some projects which the Government deems them essential. They include a EUR 6 billion investment in two new nuclear reactors at Cernavodă, the completion of the hydroelectric plant Tarnița in Cluj county, and building a thermal power station of 500–600 MW in Oltenia.
A week earlier Gerea had presented Romania’s energy policy in European context and the national objectives in the field of energy and environment. “Our main concern is to ensure energy security in this part of Europe. We want Romania to ensure a balanced, competitive and technologically neutral energy mix where renewable energy sources and nuclear energy could contribute to achieving energy and climate targets set at European and national level,” he said. Romania has two nuclear power reactors in Cernavodă operated by NuclearElectrica.
Following the nuclear disaster in Fukushima in 2011, Germany announced that it would close all of its nuclear power plants. Eight of the seventeen operating reactors in Germany were permanently shut down. ”As the first big industrialized nation, we can achieve such a transformation toward efficient and renewable energies, with all the opportunities that brings for exports, developing new technologies and jobs,” chancellor Angela Merkel had said.
