Austria protests Czech plans to build two new reactors at Temelin

Austria's Ministry for the Environment has expressed protest at plans by the Czech Ministry for Industry and Trade to build a third and fourth reactor at Temelin, one of the Czech Republic's two nuclear power plants. On Tuesday Austrian officials said they had issued a protest at the Czech Foreign Affairs Ministry, through the Austrian ambassador to Prague. The protest is said to have stressed that presently the Czech Republic already produced a ten-percent surplus of electricity for the home market. Those numbers, Austria says, could rise to as high as 50 percent with the addition of two new reactors, a move seen as controversial by Vienna because of the full liberalisation of the electricity market in 2007.