Companies

Mochovce Nuclear Power Plant can meet difficulties

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

The completion of the third and fourth blocks at the Mochovce nuclear power plant in Slovakia can meet difficulties, reports Hospodarske Noviny daily. Apart from traditionally anti-nuclear oriented Austrian neighbour, objections are raised also by Green Fraction at the European Parliament. They say that Mochovce design and its equipment is not based on accident and earthquake safety considerations. In addition, they claim that Mochovce construction is far too advanced to be retrofitted to comply with international safety standards.

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Deep under Sweden's soil could lie a solution to the UK's nuclear waste problem

Monday, March 10, 2008

Robin Pagnamenta in Oskarshamn, Sweden

Inside the cavernous hall of a nuclear storage plant in southern Sweden, an 18-tonne steel canister, bristling with tiny fins to draw out excess heat, is being hauled slowly through a hatch by a crane.

Packed with highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel from a reactor north of Stockholm, the canister is being made ready for 30 years of storage in pools sunk into the bedrock. Once it cools sufficiently, it will be placed permanently in a final repository deep underground.

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'Dirty bomb' threat as UK ships plutonium to France

Monday, March 10, 2008

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor - Sunday, 9 March 2008 - From Sellafield, an ordinary, unarmed ferry is to transport weapons-ready plutonium – material that could easily be used to make a 'dirty bomb'

Weapons-ready plutonium that terrorists could easily make into a nuclear bomb is to be carried hundreds of miles down the west coast of Britain in an unarmed ship, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

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Armenia to set up uranium prospecting joint venture with Russia

Friday, March 7, 2008

YEREVAN, March 6 (RIA Novosti) - The Armenian government authorized on Thursday the establishment of a joint venture with Russia for the additional prospecting of uranium deposits in the South Caucasus republic.

Russia's state nuclear corporation Rosatom and the Armenian environmental ministry agreed in February to set up a joint venture on a parity basis for the additional prospecting of Armenian uranium, which will be enriched in a specialized international center in Angarsk, East Siberia.

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British Energy to benefit from nuclear revival

Friday, March 7, 2008

As the government makes ever more enthusiastic pronouncements about new nuclear reactors for the UK, the outlook is brightening for British Energy, which owns the bulk of the country’s nuclear plants.

On Thursday, John Hutton, the business secretary, revealed in the Financial Times that the government would pull out all the stops to maximise expansion of nuclear power and would drop its previous commitment to holding a minimum 29.9 per cent stake in British Energy.

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CEZ completing nuclear feasibility study, environmental impact to be assessed

Friday, March 7, 2008

PRAGUE (Thomson Financial) - CEZ is completing a feasibility study on the development of nuclear energy in the Czech Republic and it is possible that an environmental impact assessment (EIA) on the expansion of the group's Temelin nuclear power plant could start this year, a company spokeswoman said.

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Britain seeks investors to back new nuclear power plants

Thursday, March 6, 2008

The UK is committed to a dramatic and rapid expansion of nuclear power, ensuring new stations generate "significantly" more of the country's electricity than the existing stock, according to John Hutton, the business secretary.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Hutton also dropped the UK government's previous commitment to maintaining a minimum 29.9 per cent stake in British Energy, the nuclear generator.

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Greenpeace protests against Erste Bank's financing of Slovakian nuclear plant

Thursday, March 6, 2008

VIENNA Thomson Financial - Greenpeace activists 'walled in' a branch of one of Austria's largest banks, Erste Bank AG, in the centre of Vienna on this morning in protest against its financing of the Mochovce nuclear plant in Slovakia.

A group of around thirty activists erected a brickwall in front of the bank's main entrance on one of the capital's busy pedestrian zones and called for Erste Bank to cancel its loan to the Slovak utility Slovenske Elektrarne.

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Bulgaria prefers nuclear to wind, solar power-EconMin

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

SOFIA, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Bulgaria should push ahead with plans to build a new nuclear power plant rather than opt for wind and solar power to solve its energy problems, the economy and energy minister said on Wednesday.

Petar Dimitrov told a conference estimates showed that his Balkan country's wind power potential was equal to the capacity of 2,000 megawatts of its Kozloduy nuclear power plant, which supplies about 33 percent of Bulgaria's power.

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Price for French nuclear tech may prove too high

Monday, March 3, 2008

With France pushing for greater cooperation on nuclear power with Romania, the Canadians who first introduced nuclear tech to Romania argue the Gallic technology comes at a cost the country may not be willing to pay.

Romania plans to build a second nuclear power station, but its rumoured interest in French nuclear technology may prove too expensive an option. News of the country’s flirtation with French nuclear technology arose when President Nicolas Sarkozy visited Bucharest last February.

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