Today, nuclear energy is often mentioned in Serbia as if it were a simple technical solution to our energy challenges. In public debate it is presented almost like an infrastructure procurement issue: build a plant, secure electricity, problem solved.
- Reality is very different.
- Nuclear energy is not a project.
- It is a system.
- It is not a decision of one government.
It is a state strategy spanning at least three decades, demanding knowledge, trained people, institutions, planning discipline, safety culture, and political maturity that cannot be improvised. If these foundations do not exist, nuclear energy is not progress — it is risk.
A nuclear power plant is not just a reactor and a turbine. It begins long before the first shovel of concrete touches the ground. It begins with a serious education system, credible state institutions, an independent regulator, international commitments, safety frameworks, waste management planning, crisis response capacity, and an industrial ecosystem capable of supporting such infrastructure. None of this appears because someone signed a memorandum of understanding or announced political intent. It appears when a state genuinely understands that nuclear energy is not a short-term gesture but a generational responsibility.
So the first and most important question is: who will actually do this work in Serbia?
If Serbia does not have the people, it does not have nuclear energy. It does not have safety. It does not have credibility. Nuclear systems are not run by PR, political commissions or consultants. They are run by nuclear engineers, physicists, materials specialists, reactor safety analysts, radiation protection experts, regulatory specialists, lawyers familiar with international nuclear law, specialists for waste storage, grid stability experts and crisis management professionals. These people do not appear in one year. They are built through decades of investment in education, scientific institutions and national industrial capability.
Serbia therefore must first ask:
- Where are our universities?
- Who will educate future nuclear engineers?
- How do we keep them in the country?
- Who will establish a strong, independent, professional regulatory authority?
- How do we build a culture in which safety is not a slogan but a discipline?
- Only after that comes the question that politics likes to start with: which partner, which technology, which site?
Countries that take nuclear energy seriously first build capacity, and only then discuss construction. They begin by establishing academic programs. They form expert commissions staffed by people with real competence. They cooperate with countries that already operate nuclear programs. They build regulatory authority that is independent, credible and respected. They build industrial capacity step by step.
Nuclear energy is a continuity policy. It needs five-year plans, ten-year plans, fifteen-year plans. That means politics must understand that nuclear development cannot be reduced to press conferences or campaign talking points. Governments can change. Strategies must continue. Institutions must be stronger than politicians.
And this leads us to the key question: why are experts essential before any serious decision is even possible?
Because nuclear decisions are not ideological questions. They are not emotional debates of “for” or “against.” They are technical, economic, safety, environmental and geopolitical decisions at the highest level of responsibility. Only those who truly understand international standards, worst-case risk management, safety culture, licensing, waste storage obligations, decommissioning realities and financial sustainability can responsibly influence such a decision.
Experts exist not to decorate announcements, but to set limits. To say what cannot be done quickly. To say what cannot be skipped. To say where shortcuts do not exist. Nuclear energy is not a field where you “learn along the way.” You learn before. Mistakes are not allowed. Responsibility lasts decades.
So when someone in Serbia says: “We are entering the nuclear program,” they are effectively saying:
- We are committing ourselves to educating generations,
- to establishing institutions that must never fail,
- to building a system that must survive politics,
- and to developing a society mature enough to understand the scale of this decision.
If Serbia does not yet have enough trained experts, independent regulators, institutional capacity and industrial backbone, then the honest answer is: Serbia is not yet ready to decide — not because nuclear energy is wrong, but because responsibility must come before ambition.
Serious countries do not ask only, “Are we in favor of nuclear energy?”
They ask three far more important questions:
- Do we have the people capable of doing this?
- Do we have institutions capable of controlling it?
- Do we have a society ready for a long, disciplined, technically grounded commitment?
If any answer is “no” or “we are not sure,” nuclear energy is not an option yet — because nuclear power does not forgive improvisation.
It belongs only to those who fully understand how big and demanding it really is.
Elevated by clarion.engineer