France's two biggest energy groups, EDF and GDF Suez, are vying to build the country's latest nuclear power plant, casting fresh doubt on their participation in Britain's planned nuclear renaissance.
Last week President Nicolas Sarkozy gave the go-ahead for a second new-generation European pressurised reactor (EPR) on an existing site. It will be France's 60th nuclear power plant.
French energy major Suez and nuclear engineering company Areva have signed an agreement, giving Suez a 5% ownership interest in the company that holds the Georges Besse II uranium enrichment plant.
The facility, built by Areva at the Tricastin site in France's Drome department, is based on ultra centrifuge technology. Suez, through its energy services business line, is building the electrical installations, and supplying the fluid management systems and the HVAC and process cooling equipment of the new plant, which is scheduled for startup in 2009.
LE CREUSOT, July 3: President Nicolas Sarkozy announced on Thursday that France will build a second third-generation EPR nuclear plant, arguing that nuclear power was France’s best answer to soaring energy prices.
“We are going to build a new EPR nuclear reactor, separate from the one in Flamanville,” Sarkozy said in a speech on energy policy as he visited an ArcelorMittal steel factory in central France.
Taxpayers are being forced to indemnify the winner of the £7.5bn contract to decommission the highly toxic Sellafield nuclear site in Cumbria against an accident because the bidders are based overseas. The preferred consortium will be announced on Friday.
Four consortia are vying for the contract, which could be worth £20bn over its lifetime, including US engineering giants Fluor, Bechtel, Washington Group and CH2M Hill, as well as French nuclear power group Areva and the Japanese firm Toshiba. UK companies Serco and Amec are also members of overseas-led consortia.
PARIS, July 4 (Reuters) - French alternative power supplier Poweo on Friday said it was interested in taking part in the construction of new-generation European Pressurised nuclear Reactors (EPR) in France.
"Poweo has long expressed its interest in co-investing in an EPR, and today confirms its interest in being associated either to the Flamanville site under construction, or to the new project along with other energy players involved," the company said in a statement.
A SECRET ballot on industrial action is being organised for Sellafield’s 10,000 workers
WEST Cumbria – and Copeland in particular – is likely to become more dependent than ever on the nuclear industry and we say that in full light of all the on-going efforts to diversify our economy.
So with all the signs pointing to another strike at the area’s biggest employer and economic bread earner – Sellafield – it has to be worrying.
KEY decommissioning projects at Sellafield may have to be delayed because of a budget shortfall.
America's landfills for low-level nuclear waste should be conserved for America's waste, according to a new, bipartisan bill to be introduced next week in the U.S. Senate.
The bill targets efforts by Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions to use its Tooele County landfill for contaminated cleanup waste from Italy's defunct nuclear reactors and maybe other foreign waste in the future. And it echoes a bill proposed in the House of Representatives by U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and two colleagues.
German electricity generator EnBW has reported that Unit-2 of its Philippsburg nuclear power plant has been taken offline for maintenance and technical upgrade.
EnBW has said that extensive inspection and maintenance work will be carried out on the unit, and technical projects will be implemented to ensure that the plant is up to date with the latest technical developments.
