Companies

'Catastrophe Is Nuclear Energy's Standard Operating Procedure'

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Debates about climate change at the G-8 meetings in Japan and this week's mishap at a French nuclear facility have Germans revisiting the benefits and dangers of nuclear energy. Deep national divisions on the issue are reflected on the editorial pages.

Germans are conflicted about nuclear energy, and amazingly so. In fact, according to a survey released Wednesday by the Forsa polling agency, exactly 46 percent of Germans are for -- and 46 percent of Germans are against -- extending the operating life of the country's nuclear reactors past the date 15 years from now when a nuclear phaseout is supposed to be completed.

Posted in | »

Sellafield clean-up set to take 112 years

Thursday, July 10, 2008

It has been revealed that it will take more than 100 years before the toxic nuclear site in Sellafield is safe.

A report from Westminster's Public Accounts Committee says the UK's largest atomic power station will not be completely clean until 2120.

The South Down SDLP MP, Eddie McGrady, described the nuclear waste as a time bomb waiting to happen. 'They are not only producing but importing the dirty stuff from the rest of the world, it is incredible,' he said.

Posted in | »

German energy companies move to extend nuclear plants' lives

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Berlin - Germany's oldest nuclear power plant still in operation was to have been shut down for good in autumn next year. That date was determined not so much by the plant's age - Biblis A went onstream in 1974 - as by a political decision taken in 2000 to phase out nuclear power completely by around 2021.

In terms of the relevant legislation passed two years later, each of Germany's 17 nuclear plants was allocated a block of remaining operating time.

Posted in | »

Demise of nuclear power stations may open doors

Thursday, July 10, 2008

BUSINESS is being encouraged to capitalise on the demise of Wales’ nuclear power stations.

The Welsh Assembly Government is working with Magnox North to develop a local supply chain and identify a range of potential opportunities for local businesses.

It is hoped the measures will help businesses raise their game to ensure they have the capacity and capability to benefit from the decommissioning of nuclear power stations in the region.

Posted in | »

Warning over nuclear power sites

Thursday, July 10, 2008

The £73 billion cost of decommissioning nuclear power sites could be increased "significantly", the head of an influential committee of MPs have warned.

Edward Leigh, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee said the cost of work over the next five years had already risen "steeply."

Posted in | »

Mood for nuclear power in Germany improving - E.ON

Thursday, July 10, 2008

BERLIN, July 10 (Reuters) - E.ON Chief Executive Wulf Bernotat said on Thursday he had sensed a shift in the mood for nuclear power in Germany but did not expect an imminent deal to repeal a law to shut the country's nuclear plants by 2021.

Bernotat told journalists in Berlin he believed it would be possible at some point to revoke the law as public opposition to nuclear power wanes.

Posted in | »

EDF Battles Hedge Funds, Power Traders to Keep Nuclear Secrets

Thursday, July 10, 2008

July 10 (Bloomberg) -- Christian Kunze pays French farmers to install camouflaged, shoebox-sized "power stalkers'' in fields near nuclear stations owned by Electricite de France SA, collecting data the world's biggest utility says is a secret.

His company, Powermonitor, plans to sell information about reactor starts and stops in France less than three years after Kunze fended off spying charges from EDF's German affiliate. Banks, hedge funds and traders will pay for such data to gain an edge in continental Europe's $565 billion power market.

Posted in | »

RWE to shut down Biblis A reactor for maintenance during four months in 2009

Thursday, July 10, 2008

FRANKFURT (Thomson Financial) - RWE AG. plans to shut down its Biblis A reactor for maintenance during the four months to September 2009, Mannheimer Morgen reported, citing the reactor's technical director Juergen Haag.

This would allow RWE to operate the reactor, which is Germany's oldest, until after the German parliamentary elections in autumn that year.

Posted in | »

French uranium leak smaller than thought-Areva

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

PARIS, July 9 (Reuters) - French nuclear firm Areva said on Wednesday that a leak of liquid containing uranium from a site in southeastern France was smaller than initially thought.

Areva said late on Tuesday that 30 cubic metres of liquid containing uranium, which was not enriched, was accidentally poured on the ground and into a river at the Tricastin nuclear site.

Posted in | »

Accidental uranium waste spill at French nuclear plant

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

MARSEILLE -- An accidental spillage of waste containing uranium occurred Tuesday at one of France's top nuclear plants but authorities said there was no immediate cause for concern, authorities said.

Some 30 cubic meters (over 1,000 cubic feet) of effluents containing 12 grams (easily less than half an ounce) of uranium per liter spilled out at the Tricastin Nuclear Power Centre in Bollene in southern France.

Posted in | »