For Burduja, the minister, that means it may be better to work with Washington than against it. “We can aim to be a leader,” he said, but “if technology is developed faster in the U.S. or in the EU, and the EU or the U.S. benefit from it, I think it’s just as good.”
But Goicea argues the EU can still get ahead on even more advanced fourth-generation miniature reactors, which could see the light of day in the 2040s. They work at higher temperatures, making them more efficient and reducing the waste they produce.
Newcleo, a Franco-Italian-British startup, for example, aims to build lead-cooled miniature reactors that the firm says would cost less than a fifth of normal reactors to build and produce less than 0.5 percent of the nuclear waste emitted by larger reactors.
With this technology, “we have an opportunity to take [advantage of] this little gap that at the moment is actually there” among global powers, said Newcleo’s CEO Stefano Buono, adding it’s a “huge opportunity for Europe” — but only if Brussels starts pouring cash into the sector.
Back in his municipal office, Stroe said he is hopeful too, but understands that any benefits from the miniature reactors remain far off.
“It’s a very early stage of the project,” he said, and “my first and foremost concern is to look [out for] the community in the short and medium term.”
Still, change is afoot, Stroe said, gesturing down to the floor, where 35 million tons of coal lie buried under the town, unexploited. “I am a forward thinker, I don’t live in the past.”
