€130 Billion Nuclear Dream in Europe Meets Financial Reality
Eastern European governments from Prague to Sofia have grand plans to build new plants, but the question is who will pay for them.
An employee holds a tablet device in the control room at the Paks nuclear power plant in Hungary.
Photographer: Akos Stiller/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
The explosion at the Chernobyl plant in 1986 slowed the Soviet-era flurry of nuclear projects in Eastern Europe, and then the fall of communist regimes reduced it to a trickle.
Now as the west of the continent focuses on upgrading or replacing old reactors, its east is uniting behind the biggest drive for new capacity in decades. The question, though, is who will pay for it and how much of it becomes reality.