Areva

EDF: Nuclear Goals Mean EUR40 Billion

Thursday, December 4, 2008

PARIS - (Dow Jones)- French nuclear utility Electricite de France SA Thursday announced higher costs for a reactor it's building in France and said its ambition to lead a worldwide wave of building new nuclear plants means total capital expenditure of between EUR40 billion and EUR50 billion by 2020.

The net financing requirements for EDF over the same period should be between EUR12 billion and EUR20 billion, EDF said, given the involvement of partners in projects in France, China, the U.S. and possibly the U.K.

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Stop-start revival of the nuclear industry

Friday, November 28, 2008

Barely a few days before the collapse of Lehman Brothers, EDF finally clinched its multi-billion pound acquisition of British Energy. At about the same time, the French state-controlled electricity group also tried – and failed – to counter veteran investor Warren Buffett’s bid for control of a US electricity utility, Constellation Energy.

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French nuclear firms confident in credit crisis

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

PARIS, Nov 24 (Reuters) - French atomic energy firms may be over-confident when they say their plans to expand abroad will survive the credit crisis unscathed.

Some analysts say financing problems, if prolonged, are bound to delay schemes in a sector with such high capital costs.

France hopes to use its unrivalled atomic expertise to lead a global nuclear revival spurred by rising fossil fuel prices and concerns over climate change. Its firms may even benefit as a slowing economy lowers costs for current building in France.

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Total sees nuclear energy for growth after peak oil

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

DOHA, Nov 10 (Reuters) - French oil and gas giant Total is targeting nuclear energy to drive growth long after oil and gas output peak, a top executive said on Monday.

"In the future, energy demand will be constrained by tight supply," Arnaud Chaperon, Total's senior vice president for electricity and new energies, said in a presentation to a nuclear energy conference in Qatar.

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As Finland Builds Another Nuclear Plant, a Remote City Flourishes

Sunday, November 16, 2008

RAUMA, Finland — The cafe where Paivi Alanko-Rehelma serves coffee and smoked fish stands practically in the shadow of a sprawling building site on the island of Olkiluoto where Finland is erecting a nuclear power plant, the island’s third, and Finland’s fifth in the last 30 years.

Rauma is about 10 miles from Olkiluoto, a nuclear plant site.

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France reassures on cleanness of nuclear sites

Sunday, November 9, 2008

PARIS (Reuters) - Tests on water tables under French nuclear sites, after a major uranium leak in the south earlier this year, showed there were no significant environmental or health dangers, a government committee said on Friday.

Plant operator Areva said in July that 30 cubic meters of liquid containing non-enriched uranium was accidentally poured onto the ground and into a river at the Tricastin nuclear site in southeastern France.

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Bulgaria urges RWE to approve Belene nuclear

Friday, November 7, 2008

SOFIA, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Bulgaria urged German power utility RWE on Thursday to reject pressure from green activists and approve a deal to become a strategic investor in a planned 4.0 billion euro ($5.16 billion) nuclear power plant.

Deputy Energy Minister Yavor Kuyumdzhiev said Bulgaria will wait for RWE's supervisory board approval of the deal until the spring of 2009, when construction of the 2,000 megawatt Belene plant should start.

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Finland sets energy targets, may need more nuclear

Friday, November 7, 2008

HELSINKI, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Finland set targets on Thursday to rein in power consumption and raise the share of renewable energy to meet European Union goals for 2020, and flagged the possible need for more nuclear power.

"The starting point for us is that Finland will on average produce enough electricity for domestic use," Minister of Economic Affairs Mauri Pekkarinen said in a statement.

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Finland's symbol of resurrection becomes showcase for hassles, delays and cost-overruns

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Finland's Olkiluoto power station was meant to symbolise the resurrection of nuclear power after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and to act as a showcase for Areva of France's new EPR reactor technology.

The first nuclear power station to be built in western Europe since Chernobyl, Olkiluoto 3 would demonstrate that nuclear energy was the obvious solution to growing concerns about CO2 emissions, high fossil fuel prices and dependence on imported energy sources.

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Greenpeace says Belene nuclear plant the world's most dangerous-report

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Bulgaria's planned nuclear power plant at Belene on the Danube River is amongst the most dangerous contemplated projects of its kind in the whole world, Greenpeace nuclear analyst Heinz Smital has said, as quoted by Deutsche Welle.

According to Smital's warning, Belene was massive and irresponsible gamble, which would only tarnish the reparation of RWE, the German company picked as the strategic investor in the nuclear power plant. Far worse, the German company was playing Russian roulette with people's lives in the entire region of South-Eastern Europe, he said.

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