Hi LevinK - you gotta remember that the UK lead the way with nuclear disasters and how to keep them quiet. There was a fire at Windscale back in the 50s- few folks new about neuks back then so the fall out wasn't detected.

Lovelock was working in London then and had instrumentation that did detect the fall out.

Lovelock maintains that there was little recorded death and disease from this accident - of course there's all the folks that died of mysterios causes.

I might guess that the Kozloduy plant doesn't have a concrete containment structure?  Correct me if I'm wrong there.  But what you're saying is that the new neuks will just replace old decommissioned.

We have the same problem here in the UK - a lot of old neuk plants due to close - with no clear idea what will replace them.

You guess wrong. Units 1 and 2, closed in 2002 did not have containment structure, but units 3 and 4 due to be closed in a month have one.

Units 5 and 6 (VVER-1000) are of more contemporary design and their concrete structure is additionally enforced to fully meet international standards.

Sorry LevinK, I was just being facecious.

I wish we could have new nuclear build in the UK too, we're certainly going to need it.

I admit I don't know much about Bulgaria's nuclear programmes.  What is done with high level nuclear waste in Bulgaria?

I was in Bulgaria last year, but I was just passing through.  I wanted to go to Sofia, but the flooding had closed the railway line and I didn't have time to hang around.

Andy

Hi Andy,

Nuclear waste is being sent back to Russia where it is reprocessed, AFAIK. A very convenient schema for us, and also quite beneficial for both sides.

Bulgaria is a beautiful country with nice and well-preserved nature. A good choice for vacation, but for the average Bulgarian life is becoming harder recently. Energy and goods prices are closing to or even above european levels, while income stays basically fixed.