23 Sept (NucNet): Sixty-one percent of Lithuanians would approve of foreign investment in the country’s proposed new nuclear power plant, a new opinion poll has indicated.
According to the results of the poll, 21 percent of respondents would disapprove of foreign investors being involved while the remainder had no opinion.
More than half of the respondents (55 percent) said they would favour the involvement of Latvia, Estonia and Poland in the project, compared to 19 percent against and the remainder having no opinion.
The representative poll of more than 1,000 adults was conducted by the Lithuanian-UK market research and public opinion company Baltijos Tyrimai (Baltic Surveys) last month.
Visagino atomine elektrine, the project development company for the new nuclear plant, published the poll’s results yesterday.
Two potential construction sites are under consideration for Visaginas, both near the existing Ignalina nuclear power plant on the south bank of Lake Druksiai. The sites are about six kilometres from the town of Visaginas and near the border with Latvia and Belarus.
An ‘eco-geological survey’ of both sites was completed earlier this year as part of an overall environmental audit which is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year.
In 2006, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia provisionally agreed to collaborate in building the new nuclear plant as a replacement for Ignalina.
Ignalina-2, which will shut down at the end of this year, is Lithuania’s only commercially operational unit following the shut-down in December 2004 of Ignalina-1. The shut-down of both units was linked to conditions of Lithuania’s entry into the EU.
Earlier this year, Lithuania and Estonia agreed to speed up plans to build the new plant.
>>Related reports in the NucNet database (available to subscribers)
Lithuania Awards EUR 1. 3 Million EIA Contract For Possible New Unit (News in Brief No. 14, 5 February 2008)
Baltic Leaders Agree To Speed-Up New N-Plant Project (News in Brief No. 13, 29 January 2009)
Lithuania Safety Report Outlines Preparatory Work For New Unit (News No. 56, 24 August 2009)
