DONALD TUSK (pictured), the prime minister, and his cabinet finally adopted the Polish nuclear power programme on January 28th, giving the green light to construction of the country's first nuclear-power plant. A state-owned energy company, PGE, is managing the project, which will cost an estimated 40-60 billion zloty ($13-19 billion). Two energy firms, Enea Group and Tauron, and KGHM, the country’s copper producing Goliath, have been cited as possible partners.

The location of the first plant will be decided by 2016, with construction beginning in 2019. Two locations, Choczewo and Zarnowiec, both close to the Baltic coast, have been shortlisted. The government wants the first plant, capable of producing 3,000 megawatts of electricity, to be operational by 2024. The programme outlines plans to build a second plant by 2035.

Foreign investment and expertise will be needed to deliver the project. Two French energy companies, Areva and EDF, signed memoranda of understanding with a number of Polish construction firms in September with the aim of collaborating on the construction of a future nuclear plant.

Mr Tusk’s government first signalled its commitment to develop a nuclear energy programme in 2009, with the publication of a plan to diversify the country’s energy mix. It estimates that nuclear energy will supply 17% of the country’s electricity by 2030. Currently, hard coal and lignite are used to produce roughly 88% of the electrical grid. Dependence on Russian gas imports, and pressure from Brussels to reduce carbon emissions by 2020 beyond the 20% level previously already agreed, have pushed the government to look for alternatives.

The cabinet’s decision comes only two weeks after the national audit office issued a fairly damning report on the slow pace of shale gas exploration. It stated that at the present speed it would take 12 years to drill as few as 200 wells. With the jury still out on the real commercial value of Polish shale gas, it appears that the government has decided to hedge its bets by giving the nuclear-power programme the green light.

One of the two proposed sites, Zarnowiec, is home to the site of Poland’s previously unfinished nuclear power plant, abandoned in 1989 when the Communists were voted out of power. Weeds now cover the decaying concrete blocks at Zarnowiec, but support among locals for the construction of a new plant is reported to be high. At the Choczewo site, Greenpeace has applied to regional authorities and the environmental inspectorate to determine if drilling may damage the local ecosystem. (It says neither has yet replied.)

Law and Justice, the main opposition party (which is eight points ahead of the ruling Civic Platform in a recent poll) said in November that, if elected, it would hold a referendum on nuclear energy. Some members of PSL, a left-wing party and Civic Platform’s coalition partner, oppose the programme. PSL’s leader, Janusz Piechocinski, is the deputy prime minister and minister of economy, responsible for delivering the nuclear-energy programme on time. PSL members will vote on whether to support the programme at the party’s conference in April.

Public opinion is split. A survey in December by Millward Brown, published in Newsweek Polska, found that 50% of Poles favoured building the first nuclear plant, with 8% undecided. During the nuclear programme’s prolonged two-year public consultation, the ministry of economy received over 60,000 submissions—the vast majority from concerned German citizens in the neighbouring region of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.