ATHENS – Three years after Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Greece would never use nuclear power because of frequent earthquakes, his  Special Adviser on energy, Nikos Tsafos said the idea isn’t being ruled out completely.

“It is a technology that is evolving and we must monitor it from now on to be ready when it matures to plan its eventual utilization,” Tsafos told Kathimerini as Greece is seeking alternative and sustainable sources to get away from using fossil fuels.

But he said it wouldn’t be a nuclear power plant if implemented but small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) also known as pocket reactors in the country, no mention of where they might be placed.

He also said there’s another option – participating in some project for an interconnected European market, with 20 countries having nuclear plants, although a plan to get electricity from a nuclear facility in Bulgaria didn’t pan out after previously doing so.

Tsafos said that renewed interest in nuclear plants worldwide has been noticed in Greece and big energy companies wanting to cash in. He held the James R. Schlesinger Chair in Energy and Geopolitics with the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and graduated from Boston University and has been a consultant on energy projects for more than 30 countries.

His comments came after Mitsotakis told The Economist conference that,  “Europe has been and remains a leading power in nuclear technology. Greece does not have nuclear power. There is no way to get to neutral emissions without nuclear power. So are we, as Europeans, investing in the next generation of SMRs? Have we really made the right choices for green transition?”

In October 2021 he said after a meeting of European Union leaders that while Greece doesn’t oppose other countries having nuclear plants that, “Greece will never acquire nuclear energy because we are in an extremely seismic region,” said Euractiv.

https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/greece-will-never-turn-to-nuclear-energy/

“But it concerns other countries, and we cannot stop them. It is a source of energy that does not cause emissions,” he added, his government now apparently titillated about the idea of at least considering SMR’s.

Greece has been trying to further wean off reliance on Russian supplies in the wake of that country’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and is also implementing more solar and wind power, having an abundance both, especially in the seas and on islands.

Greece belongs to the group of EU countries which advocate for natural gas as a transition energy source until Europe entirely switches to renewables, the news site said, Greece needing hydrocarbon imports for 68 percent of its power in 2019 before going greener.

With a rapprochement between the countries, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in December 2023 suggested supplying Greece with electricity from its planned nuclear power plant in Sinop and with gas via a future hub in Thrace, said Balkan Green Energy.

https://balkangreenenergynews.com/erdogan-hints-at-cooperation-with-greece-in-nuclear-energy/

He and Mitsotakis signed a joint declaration of more than a dozen deals, including one in which Greece’s Independent Power Transmission Operator (ADMIE) and Turkish Electricity Transmission Corp (TEIAS) would install an electricity line between Nea Sanda and Babaeski to boost the cross-border flow capacity by 600 Megawatts.

Erdoğan also said the nuclear and gas projects are a potential source of energy for Greece and that he would strive for progress “in all areas” and suggested that the countries cooperate on sharing resources in the Eastern Mediterranean.