The Government is planning to write a "blank cheque" to the nuclear industry by underwriting the cost of new power stations, leading energy academics have claimed in a letter to The Independent.
Under a major policy U-turn being considered by ministers, the taxpayer would be left to cover the cost of budget over-runs or building delays at new nuclear plants. Costly setbacks are almost inevitable with such complex construction projects.
(Reuters) - Lithuanians rejected a plan to build a nuclear plant to cut dependence on imports of Russian energy, in a non-binding referendum that does not kill off the project but leaves a question mark over its future.
Support for the plant in Lithuania, one of the European Union states most dependent on imported energy, waned after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan last year.
Two nuclear-power plants majority-owned by Vattenfall AB, a state-owned Swedish power company, were targeted by Greenpeace activists, about 70 of whom broke into restricted areas.
The activists targeted the Ringhals plant on Sweden's west coast and the Forsmark facility on the east coast. Combined they produce about 36% of energy consumed in Sweden.
In a shock announcement, Czech power company CEZ on Friday excluded France’s Areva from its multi-billion-euro tender to expand the Temelin nuclear power plant for failing to fulfill all the requirements, leaving Toshiba’s US unit Westinghouse and a consortium led by Russia’s Atomstroyexport as the two remaining bidders.
European stress tests on nuclear power plants in the EU have identified room for improvement at almost all the bloc's reactors. Yet Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger described the overall situation as "satisfactory."
The nuclear stress tests were not due to be presented to EU leaders until their next summit in mid-October, but several news agencies acquired the report ahead of time on Monday.
The Dutch authorities have turned down a request by the City of Ghent (East Flanders) to shut down the nuclear power station at Borssele (Zeeland).
The Borssele Plant is on the southern coast of the Zuid-Beverland peninsular and as such is only around 40km as the crow flies from the East Flemish city. The city authorities in Ghent had wanted the Dutch to close the reactor at Borssele to allow safety checks to be carried out.
The owner of Scottish Power has pulled out of a multibillion-pound plan to build atomic reactors, dealing a blow to Britain’s faltering nuclear renaissance.
The decision by Iberdrola, the Spanish energy giant, means there is now a question mark over two of the three groups that planned plants. Ministers hoped the trio would build a dozen reactors generating roughly a fifth of Britain’s power over the next 20 years.
Britain’s nuclear new build programme is facing fresh uncertainty amid fears that Cumbria county council will postpone or even reject plans to host a permanent storage facility for the country’s nuclear waste.
Local politicians have warned that the council is increasingly wary about volunteering to store hundreds of thousands of tonnes of radioactive material underground amid the rolling hills of the north-west.
(Reuters) - France will close its oldest nuclear power plant, Fessenheim, at the end of 2016, President Francois Hollande said on Friday, bringing the closure date forward by a few months.
"The Fessenheim power plant ... will close at the end of 2016, Hollande said, speaking a few days after a steam leak triggered a brief fire alert at Fessenheim, in eastern France, and following another safety alert earlier in the year.
(Reuters) - A second nuclear reactor in Belgium has indications of cracks in its core tank, the nuclear regulator said on Thursday, putting further strain on the country's energy supply as it heads into winter.
Preliminary results of tests being carried out at Tihange 2, a reactor operated by GDF Suez unit Electrabel, showed that there were indications of cracks on the core tank, Belgium's nuclear regulator FANC said in a statement.
