Finland's Olkiluoto power station was meant to symbolise the resurrection of nuclear power after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and to act as a showcase for Areva of France's new EPR reactor technology.
The first nuclear power station to be built in western Europe since Chernobyl, Olkiluoto 3 would demonstrate that nuclear energy was the obvious solution to growing concerns about CO2 emissions, high fossil fuel prices and dependence on imported energy sources.
STOCKHOLM, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Swedish power group Vattenfall said on Tuesday an inspection had revealed one broken control rod and cracks in about 30 percent of others at its Forsmark 3 reactor.
Forsmark communications director Claes-Inge Andersson told Reuters that about 100 out of 169 rods had been inspected and cracks had been found in some 25-30 percent of them.
MADRID, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Spain's 1,000 megawatt Vandellos II nuclear power station was working at about 30 percent of capacity on Friday morning after being reconnected to the grid on Thursday afternoon, technicians said.
The Iberdrola-owned plant near the northeastern port of Tarragona had been halted since one of its generators caught fire on Aug. 24.
MOCHOVCE, Slovakia, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Italy's utility Enel SpA plans to spend around 90 billion crowns ($3.8 billion) in Slovakia through its 66 percent-owned power generator Slovenske Elektrarne, Chief Executive Fulvio Conti said on Monday.
Conti said the company may reassess other Slovak investment plans worth another 20 billion crowns.
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.
Bulgaria's planned nuclear power plant at Belene on the Danube River is amongst the most dangerous contemplated projects of its kind in the whole world, Greenpeace nuclear analyst Heinz Smital has said, as quoted by Deutsche Welle.
According to Smital's warning, Belene was massive and irresponsible gamble, which would only tarnish the reparation of RWE, the German company picked as the strategic investor in the nuclear power plant. Far worse, the German company was playing Russian roulette with people's lives in the entire region of South-Eastern Europe, he said.
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.
MADRID, Nov 2 (Reuters) - European Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs will propose a new EU-wide energy regulator with equal powers to national regulators and will push for greater independence for those state watchdogs, he said on Sunday.
"I am going to propose a new regulation both for national regulators, to increase their real independence and their capacity to intervene, and a new Agency of European Regulators, which has to have powers comparable with national regulators," Piebalgs told the Sunday edition of Spanish newspaper ABC.
Governor of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Ilya Mikhalchuk, is planning a meeting with Rosatom leader Sergey Kirienko in a bid to revitalize plans for a nuclear power plant in the region.
According to Dvinainform.ru, Governor Mikhalchuk will in the near future meet with the leader of Russia’s state nuclear energy company Rosatom to discuss the project.
