this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2022
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Not a good pick for a contractor but I doubt Poland was given much choice. If completed and taken online these reactors will significantly decrease the GHG emissions in Poland. One can only hope that Czechia follows with reactors of their own.
Poland deliberated over the nuclear energy for decades. At first there was plan for construction of Soviet tech in Żarnowiec, but it failed mainly due to people's concern.
Recently, amids the energy crisis (it's not just this year in Poland, it was looming for at least few years), Poland decided to buy the tech from the French - this time any concerns were as usual in capitalism completely ignored - but as you said, we are a puppet of US and one word of our suzerain was enough to yet again (after some weapons contracts) choose what was most probably the worst option.
Now, people here are mostly fearing the atom because standard fears, but there are also not entirely unfounded fears, given how bad record of corruption and inefficiency capitalist Poland have with big projects, but the idea is not entirely bad - we do need energy and Poland actually do have cadre of experienced nuclear scientists operating the experimental reactor MARIA (second one EWA was closed in 1995). Unfortunately as you can see there is a reason to be afraid since even at step one political bootlicking took precedence over everything else.