Nuclear power in Europe

Lithuania's state-controlled Lietuvos Elektrine (Lithuanian Power Plant, or LPP) has invited international bids to design and build a new combined cycle gas turbine plant (CCGT) with a capacity of 350 to 450 megawatts (MW), the Economy Ministry said on Wednesday.

The project, worth an estimated 720 million litas (EUR 209 mln), is part of ongoing upgrades at the LPP, which will become the main generator of electricity in Lithuania after the shutdown of the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (INPP) in 2009. The CCGT project will be financed from the Ignalina International Decommissioning Support Fund, which is administered by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and other resources, the ministry said. The new plant will produce electricity at around half the cost of power generated by the existing units of the LPP.

SOURCE: Dnevnik (Bulgaria)

The Kozloduy International Decommissioning Support Fund (KIDSF), administered by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), will grant 39 mln euro ($53.1 mln) to Bulgaria for the construction of a thermal power plant on the site of the Kozloduy nuclear plant, Dnevnik daily reported on July 8, 2007.

Number 10 has finally pressed the button. By the end of today, the government should have offloaded a large chunk of its holding in British Energy, the UK's big nuclear generator. This stands to increase the company's free-float by about three-quarters, hence the 6 per cent drop in British Energy's share price yesterday. But the shares could easily have fallen further - were it not for the clever timing of the sale.

Nuclear Engineering International - The International Energy Agency's review of the UK energy industry has called for a nuclear waste and decommissioning fund to be set up.

The International Energy Agency's (IEA's) recently published The United Kingdom 2006 Review, the second of its Energy Policies of IEA Countries series, praised the UK energy market framework but highlighted the need for a nuclear waste policy, covering all types of waste, and called for the establishment of a liabilities fund to pay for decommissioning and waste disposal.