Croatia is unlikely to go ahead with plans to build a new coal-fired thermal plant in the northern Adriatic for which it entered into partnership talks with Japan's Marubeni Corp., the environment minister said on Saturday. "We need a new energy strategy in line with the European Union plans on boosting renewable energy and reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. Such plants don't fit in," Slaven Dobrovic said at an energy round-table in Zagreb, Reuters reported. Croatia agreed early last year to begin talks with Marubeni on construction of a new 500-megawatt block at the Plomin thermal plant in the northern Adriatic Istrian peninsula, a project estimated at $900 million. "I don't know if there are some obligations towards Marubeni, but even if there were, it cannot be compared to the potential damage, economic and environmental, from such a plant," the minister said. Croatia's former center-left government pressed ahead with the project despite protests by local environmentalists, who advocated the use of natural gas instead of coal.
