Nuclear Industry Faces A Trillion-Dollar Question Post-Japan

PARIS (Muriel Boselli and Geert De Clercq) - In the inbox of Petr Zavodsky, director of nuclear power plant construction at Czech power group CEZ are three sets of proposals from American, French and Russian consortiums, all angling for a $30 billion contract to build five new reactors.

State-owned CEZ, central Europe's biggest utility group, plans to build two additional units at its Temelin plant near the Austrian border as well as up to two other units in neighboring Slovakia and another at its Dukovany station in the east of the Czech Republic.

In the running to build the plants are Toshiba Corp unit Westinghouse, an alliance of Russia's Atomstroyexport and Czech firm Skoda JS, and France's Areva.

Unlike Germany, which has said it will hasten its exit from nuclear energy following the crisis in Japan, and Italy, which has announced a one-year moratorium on plans to relaunch atomic power, the Czech Republic has no intention of slowing its push for more nuclear power. Less than a week after the Fukushima disaster, Prime Minister Petr Necas said that he could not imagine that Prague would ever close its plants. "It would lead to economic problems on the border of an economic catastrophe."

At the same time there's little doubt the Fukushima crisis will change the Czech Republic's thinking about safety in the new plants -- and that could influence whose bid will ultimately be successful.