PARIS - French electricity generator EDF is working on two new nuclear reactor designs of its own which could rival those made by Areva, the world's biggest atomic energy company, the Expansion magazine said.
In a report to appear Wednesday, Expansion said EDF is "looking at its own series of reactors," power rated at 1,000 and 1,500 Megawatts, which if finalised could be competition for Areva's third generation European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) and its Atmea design.
Bulgaria aims to limit the cost of the Belene nuclear plant being built by Russia’s ZAO Atomstroyexport to 7 billion euros ($8.8 billion), Prime Minister Boiko Borissov said.
Borissov met today with Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov in Sofia to discuss joint energy projects including construction of the 2,000-megawatt power plant on the Danube river, natural-gas supply and the South Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Western Europe via Bulgaria.
The decision of France's AREVA to take a EUR400mn charge on its Finnish nuclear reactor project, combined with a planned French nuclear plant shutdown is hurting AREVA's bottom line.
After state-owned AREVA, the world's largest uranium miner, announced last week it would take a 400 million euros (US$491mn) charge due to cost overruns at its Finnish nuclear plant project, Standard & Poor's Monday downgraded the company to a `BBB+' rating, citing continued weakened profitability.
Constant hold-ups, skyrocketing costs, faulty construction…Finland’s new Olkiluoto reactor, touted as the great white hope for Europe’s nuclear sector, is looking more and more like a great white elephant – and casting a fat black shadow over the whole industry.
Nuclear safety authorities in four countries are assessing the significance of undocumented welding on primary circuit piping for the EPR reactor under construction at Olkiluoto-3, Petteri Tiippana, director of the nuclear reactor regulation department at the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority STUK, told Platts in an interview Thursday.
But Tiippana said that contrary to a statement made Wednesday by Marie-Pierre Comets, a commissioner of French nuclear safety authority ASN, regulators from Finland, France, the UK and the US are not preparing a joint statement on the piping qual
BERLIN, Feb 12, 2010 (IPS) - The enormous technical and financial risks involved in the construction and operation of new nuclear power plants make them prohibitive for private investors, rebutting the thesis of a renaissance in nuclear energy, say several independent European studies.
The risks include high construction costs, likely long delays in building, extended periods of depreciation of equipment inherent to the construction and operation of new power plants and the lack of guarantees for prices of electricity.
The European Nuclear Energy Leadership Academy (ENELA) is going to open in Germany to attract university graduates to the nuclear energy sector and train future leaders in the field.
The founding treaty of ENELA was signed here on Thursday by six European nuclear energy companies, which are shareholders of the academy.
The French nuclear industry is in turmoil as uranium supplies have dried up and the treatment of spent fuel has been blocked amid an increasingly bitter row between the heads of its two main state operators.
EDF, the electricity group that runs 58 reactors in France, said that Areva, the nuclear energy group, had stopped uranium deliveries on January 4 and was refusing to take away spent fuel for reprocessing.
Areva is weighing whether to bring out cheaper, less sophisticated nuclear reactors after its flagship EPR lost out to a low-cost South Korean rival in one of the biggest civil tenders last year.
Top management at the French group last week launched a review of its product range to determine whether Areva should reintroduce the simpler second-generation CPR1,000 reactors - which it stopped building 20 years ago - for client countries that are new to nuclear power.
Major setback for energy plans as report finds flaws in US and French models
