Nuclear Faith: Documentary explores Czechs’ trust in nuclear energy

Two-thirds of Czechs are in favor of expanding the country’s nuclear power sources and nearly half of them trust this source of energy: that was the result of a SANEP poll published briefly after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The Czechs' attitude towards nuclear power remains strikingly positive compared to other European countries, such as neighboring Germany. A fresh documentary – titled Nuclear Faith – explores the country’s perception of nuclear energy. Its director Ivo Bystřičan speaks about the film.

Nuclear power – a buzzword with many vocal critics, but relatively few Czechs are speaking out against this form of energy. In his latest project, Atomová víra (Nuclear Faith), 32-year old documentary maker Ivo Bystřičan focuses on the relationship that Czechs have to their nuclear plants – which is one of blind faith, he says.

“The title is a provocation. We don’t know a lot about nuclear energy, so it’s a question of faith more than anything, blind faith. Nuclear plants are very complex structures and ordinary citizens know very little about how they work, even about how they are administered and what structures and relationships exist between businesses involved in nuclear energy.”

Ivo Bystřičan

Bystřičan explores this topic from several angles; among his interviewees are former Greenpeace director Jiří Tutter, head of the State Institute of Nuclear Safety Dana Drábková and ordinary citizens who live in municipalities nearby the country’s two nuclear plants, Dukovany and Temelín.

“The people who live near these nuclear plants, one or two kilometers away, do not mind it at all. If you consider that the opposition to bringing Temelín into service was quite strong, at the time, 50 percent of Czechs were against it, that is quite surprising. If nothing bad happens for ten years, people seem to forget about the risks.”

In December, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev travelled to Prague and discussed Russia’s bid to complete the Temelín nuclear power plant in South Bohemia with his Czech counterpart Václav Klaus. Three companies – the French Areva, the American Westinghouse and the Russian Atomstrojexport – are competing to win the multi-billion crown tender to build two new reactors. Ivo Bystřičan sees the project critically.

Photo: archive of Radio Prague

“The negotiations take the form of presidents from the countries that have made a bid travelling to Prague to lobby for their country’s company to win it. That clearly says something about how big a business deal this is. It is necessary to be suspicious of it – the completion will cost hundreds of millions of crowns, and I fear that it will leave very little money for other forms of energy that would be a better choice for us to invest in.”

For now, Nuclear Faith suggests, Czech support of nuclear energy remains powerful and the fear of a power blackout still looms large. Given its alleged low cost and low impact on the environment, nuclear energy is widely seen as a good choice and it may be a long time before the Czech public rethinks its reservations towards renewable energy sources.