The European Union should push its deadline to cut Europe's carbon emissions from electricity generation back by 10 years to accomodate the construction of new nuclear power generators, a senior executive at Czech utility CEZ AS (BAACEZ.PR) said Thursday.
Alan Svoboda, head of sales at CEZ, told an energy conference in Prague that nuclear power is the safest bet for the long-term energy strategy of the Czech Republic and Europe, because it generates no emissions and has stable fixed costs.
Coal has cheap fuel costs but carries high risk due to emissions and the likely rising cost in future of emissions trading credits, while natural gas power plants are cheap to build but have very volatile fuel prices and geopolitical risks.
As nuclear power plants are expensive to build and carry high decommissioning costs, government-funded investment incentives will be needed to bring plans into reality, he said.