PARIS, Nov 12 (Reuters) - France's EDF plans to start the new-generation EPR reactor under construction at the Flamanville nuclear site in northwest France in 2012, and not in 2013 as stated by Areva earlier, EDF said on Wednesday.
"EDF confirms the European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) will start in 2012," EDF said in a statement.
POLICE officers who are called to protests outside Suffolk's nuclear power station will receive specialised training and equipment courtesy of those who own the reactor.
British Energy has given £10,000 to the county's police force to help them remove campaigners from the site at Sizewell.
LONDON, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Britain has set up a watchdog to ensure that decommissioning the nuclear power plants that the government wants to be built, and disposing of the waste, does not cost the taxpayer anything.
The Nuclear Liabilities Financing Assurance Board (NLFAB) will scrutinise how the companies planning to build the new power plants will pay to shut them at the end of their useful lives and clean up the radioactive waste they produce.
It’s not only banks that are asking investors for billions of pounds these days. Last week Centrica, the energy company behind British Gas, tapped its shareholders for £2.2 billion in what will be one of the biggest rights issues outside financial services this year.
Unlike the banks, Centrica doesn’t need the money to save itself from destruction. In a harking-back to precredit crunch times, Centrica wants the cash to invest in a new business. City institutions are relieved. “They [Centrica’s large shareholders] have all said thank goodness you are here to talk about that and not another recapitalisation,” said Sam Laidlaw, Centrica’s chief executive.
PARIS, Nov 4 (Reuters) - The seven banks guaranteeing a loan to help French power company EDF finance the takeover of British Energy are struggling to find additional banks to share the risk, Les Echos reported on Tuesday.
EDF last month launched an 11 billion pound ($17.9 billion) loan backing the 12.5 billion pound acquisition with BNP Paribas, Societe Generale, Calyon, HSBC 005.HK, Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays Capital and Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi. The loan was conservatively structured with short-term maturities and generous pricing after EDF's bid was recommended by British Energy's board in September.
LONDON (Reuters) - British Energy's Hunterston B7 nuclear reactor was shutdown manually late on Tuesday but it is still unclear why the reactor in Scotland needed to be stopped, a spokesman for the company said.
"We are still looking into that," he said on Wednesday.
REPAIRS at British Energy's coal-fired Eggborough power station will be delayed until next year after the company said maintenance of its ageing nuclear power reactors is taking longer than expected.
The nuclear power group, which recently agreed to a £12.5bn marriage with French giant EDF, said maintenance of a unit at Eggborough in North Yorkshire will now happen in the first quarter of next year rather than November.
PARIS, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Unplanned works at the 900-megawatt (MW) nuclear reactor 2 at the troubled Tricastin plant in southeast France will take another few weeks, EDF said on Monday.
An incident occurred at the reactor 2 on Sept. 8 during the refuelling of the reactor, when fuel assemblies got stuck in the pressure vessel.
BRITISH Energy yesterday admitted that work had fallen behind schedule at its Hartlepool and Heysham 1 nuclear power plants and that they would be unlikely to return to service until early next year.
Maintenance work is also set to cost "marginally more" than estimated, the East Kilbride-headquartered company added.
British Energy, which last month agreed a £12.5billion takeover by France's state-owned power group EDF, owns and runs the UK's eight nuclear power stations, including Torness in East Lothian.
MORE than half of Britain's nuclear power stations are either closed or working at reduced capacity, it emerged yesterday, prompting fears of power shortages next month.
Six of the UK's ten nuclear stations are not operating at full capacity. Three are completely closed, one is operating at half capacity and two have been reduced to 70 per cent because of safety fears.
