PARIS Oct 21 (Reuters) - Unions at Areva Areva fear up to 4,000 staff, or 10 percent, will lose their jobs in a strategic review of the French nuclear reactor to be presented by CEO Luc Oursel in mid-December, Le Figaro newspaper said without citing sources.
Earlier this month, Areva said it was reviewing its investments, and may postpone some, after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March impacted decisions on nuclear investments worldwide.
German energy giant RWE has appointed advisers for a strategic review of Urenco the nuclear power company it co-owns with the British and Dutch government.
The move could press the UK Government to formalise its own strategy on disposal of the company, which is expected to net UK taxpayers 1bn.
The government's energy policy took another blow on Friday as major energy provider RWE reviewed whether to scale down or abandon its UK nuclear programme.
The German-owned utility, which owns the npower supply business, has started an internal probe of its plans to construct two possible atomic power stations at Wylfa in Wales and Oldbury in Gloucestershire.
HELSINKI/PARIS, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Finnish utility firm Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) blamed supplier Areva for further delays to the construction of its Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power plant which may further push back operations to 2014.
The 1,600 megawatt plant Olkiluoto 3, Finland's fifth nuclear reactor, was originally scheduled to start operations in 2009 but delays and soaring costs meant TVO revised its start date to 2013.
Evidence has come to light suggesting that cheap labour is being employed at the construction site of the Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power plant on the Finnish west coast. At worst, some Polish workers are paid less than two euros an hour.
A Polish electrician who wishes to remain anonymous told YLE that the dearth of jobs in his home country drove him to seek work at Olkiluoto. The man says it took him some time to realise he was being short-changed.
The project director of the Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power plant, Posiva President Reijo Sundell, insists there is no space for waste from utilities other than TVO or Fortum in the Onkalo underground disposal site on Finland's west coast.
Onkalo (or ‘cave’) is being dug into the bedrock near the Olkiluoto power station by Posiva, which is 60 percent owned by TVO and 40 percent by Fortum. The latter utility owns two commercial reactors in Loviisa on the south-east coast, and has applied to build a third. TVO has two operating reactors on Olkiluoto, an island in the municipality of Eurajoki, on the west coast between Rauma and Pori.
German industrial and engineering conglomerate Siemens is to withdraw entirely from the nuclear industry.
The move is a response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in March, chief executive Peter Loescher said.
He told Spiegel magazine it was the firm's answer to "the clear positioning of German society and politics for a pullout from nuclear energy".
PARIS — One person was killed and four were injured Monday afternoon in an explosion at a nuclear waste treatment site in southern France, according to the French Nuclear Safety Authority.
The authority and local police officials said there had been no radiation leak. About five hours after the explosion, the authority announced that the episode was over. The site, about 20 miles from Avignon, has no nuclear reactors, the authority said. A spokesman for the French power utility Électricité de France, which owns the site, said, “It is an industrial accident, not a nuclear one.”
Russia's state nuclear company Atomstroyexport – which is technically supposed to build Bulgaria's Belene NPP – is facing severe shortages, according to a freshly leaked diplomatic cable of the US ambassador in Moscow.
The cable by John Beyrle, US Ambassador to Russia who was the US Ambassador to Bulgaria before going to Moscow, dated April 3, 2009, was released Thursday by WikiLeaks and their Bulgarian partner Bivol.bg.
The Mox nuclear fuel plant at Sellafield was closed on Wednesday, with the loss of around 600 jobs.
The closure is a consequence of the Fukushima incident in Japan in March, which has closed down much of the nuclear industry there and led to a rethink of nuclear power around the world. But the government said the move had "no implications" for the UK's plans for new nuclear reactors.
