NUCLEAR POWER INCIDENT HIGHLIGHTS BULGARIA'S

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 SOFIA 000716

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/18/2026
TAGS: ENRG TRGY EUN PGOV SENV IAEA BU
SUBJECT: NUCLEAR POWER INCIDENT HIGHLIGHTS BULGARIA'S
PRE-ACCESSION JITTERS

Classified By: A/DCM Brad Freden for reason 1.4 (b) & (c).

1.(C) Summary: A recent incident at the Kozloduy nuclear
power plant has demonstrated the reluctance of Bulgarian
authorities to be fully transparent about safety problems
concerning their aging nuclear reactor. Authorities on March
1 discovered that a number of control rods used to shut down
the reactor in an emergency situation were inoperable during
a reduction of power at the reactor. Even though the IAEA
characterized the incident as a relatively minor one, the
Bulgarian government remained tight-lipped about what exactly
had happened at the plant. It was only after a German
newspaper article speculated that Bulgaria had had a
near-Chernobyl accident that Bulgarian officials were
compelled to explain what had occurred. The GOB's behavior
undoubtedly reflects its anxiety over EU accession and angst
over having to shut down Kozloduy Units 1 through 4 as part
of its membership bid. It also underscores the work still to
be done on creating a culture of greater official
transparency. End Summary.

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WHAT HAPPENED AT KOZLODUY ON MARCH 1
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2.(C) On March 1 a short circuit caused one of the cooling
pumps at Kozloduy's Unit 5 reactor to fail. As part of the
plant's emergency protection system, power in the reactor was
immediately decreased to 67 percent with the aid of the
system's control rods. Soon after the reactor was powered
down, the plant's managers discovered that a number of the
control rods had failed to drop into the proper position to
slow or stop the nuclear reaction. Further investigation
revealed that 22 of the 61 rods were failing to engage. The
plant managers eventually decided to completely shut down the
reactor to further analyze the problem. They later learned
that the failure of the control rods was due to "sticking"
between the rods and their drive mechanism. However, once the
rods were physically moved or activated, they appeared to
function fine. To prevent further sticking until a permanent
solution could be found, the plant instituted a short-term
corrective measure of moving the rods every day for the first
week after the event and then once a week until the end of
the current fuel cycle in June. Authorities now are working
with the reactor's Russian designer, Gidropress, and the
Institute of Metal Science at the Bulgarian Academy of
Science to determine the precise cause of the sticking and
develop a long-term solution to the problem.


3. (C) Sergey Tzotchev, the chairman of Bulgaria's Nuclear
Regulatory Agency (NRA),told us that Bulgarian authorities
had explained the incident to the IAEA at the biannual
meeting of INES (International Nuclear Event Scale) national
officers in Vienna May 2-5. The IAEA agreed with the plant's
initial decision to categorize the event as a Level 1 event
(Level 7 being the most dangerous). The NRA later recommended
the event be characterized as Level 2 (i.e., an "incident"
rather than an "anomaly"),according to the INES scale,
because the incident revealed that more than one element had
failed to react and there had been faults in related
procedures. The IAEA concurred with this and agreed with
Bulgarian officials that the population was never in any
danger.


4. (C) Tzotchev and his staff reassured us that if there had
been an emergency and the reactor needed to be shut down
immediately, the 39 remaining rods would have been sufficient
to perform this action. However, whether they could have
engaged these 39 rods as quickly as necessary (in a second or
two) is not clear. If the incident--and the problems of the
control rods sticking--had occurred a few months later, it is
quite possible that more rods would have failed and the
reactor would not have been able to be shut down quickly in
an emergency. This concern was expressed to us by XXXXXXXXXXXX. According to him, the event at Kozloduy
was the first time a nuclear reactor had experienced this
type of problem. He said the event represents a clear decline
in the margin of safety at the plant. He also said that the
decision by the plant's managers to leave the reactor
functioning for six hours after discovering the problem was a
clear violation of safety guidelines.

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GOVERNMENT EVADES FULL DISCLOSURE OF INCIDENT
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5. (C) More troubling, however, is how the Bulgarian
authorities handled the incident by failing to come clean

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publicly. From the outset, Bulgarian officials stayed quiet
about anything out of the ordinary occurring at the plant.
Initial press reports on March 2 or 3 indicated the reactor
had to be shut down because of electrical problems that had
caused one of the cooling pumps to automatically be switched
off. The authorities never acknowledged a problem with the
control rods or provided specific details or explanations of
what had happened. The NRA told us the agency had published
a short press release on its website summarizing the incident
two weeks after it occurred. The media, however, was never
informed about the press release, which went unnoticed. The
issue--apparently a routine shutdown--disappeared completely
from the local press until the German newspaper Der Spiel
published an article in late April quoting the former head of
the NRA, Georgi Kaschiev, who alleged a serious accident at
Kozloduy had occurred and the government was intentionally
trying to cover it up. We heard about the incident and the
problems with the rods a week before the Der Spiel article
from an Embassy contact involved in the energy field. He
alleged that the manager of the plant had been told to keep
the incident quiet or risk being "knocked off."


6. (C) Even after the article prompted the Bulgarian press to
probe the authorities for more information, the GOB remained
defensive. Minister for Economy and Energy, Rumen Ovcharov,
told the press on April 25 that "nothing out of the ordinary"
had happened, and speculation surrounding the incident was
the work of people who have done "everything they could to
discredit Bulgaria's energy sector and the country as a
whole." Ovcharov refused to respond to Kaschiev's specific
allegations, saying Bulgarian's nuclear power sector should
not be held hostage to "personal conflicts." It was clear,
however, that other politicians were not pleased about being
caught flat-footed. When asked by journalists about the
incident at Kozloduy, the Speaker of Parliament, Georgi
Pirinski, responded that he had only learned about the event
from the media. Pirinski added that he believed the
government had reacted appropriately, but certain questions
needed to be answered, like why the public was not informed
of the incident in a timely manner.

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EU NERVOUSNESS A KEY FACTOR IN LACK OF NUCLEAR TRANSPARENCY
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7. (C) Bulgaria's last-minute jitteriness over its EU
accession bid seems clearly to be behind authorities'
reluctance to be fully open about safety concerns related to
Kozloduy. Ovcharov himself admitted that this was "the worst
possible time" to be spreading "rumors" about faults in the
plant. Many government officials, as well as the public, are
still smarting over Bulgaria's agreement to close down
Kozloduy Units 1 through 4 as a condition for its EU
membership. Officials still claim that most nuclear experts
would agree that Kozloduy 3 and 4 are now safe following
recent upgrades, and that the EU is being overly cautious at
Bulgaria's expense. Ovcharov commented in March that Bulgaria
is the only country that "will have to pay a high price for
EU membership before its accession" due to the reactors'
closure. Recent reports that energy prices may climb as a
result of the loss of 3 and 4 have renewed calls by some
critics to hold a national referendum on the units' closure.
Any indication that Unit 5, which is to remain operational,
is unsafe would seriously undermine the assertion of many
officials that the forced closure of Units 3 and 4 is unjust,
and could begin sowing doubts in Brussels about the safety of
Units 5 and 6. Moreover, the Bulgarian government, already
concerned about a possible delay in its accession bid,
probably fears giving Brussels one more reason to put off its
EU membership.
Beyrle