EPR

UK nuclear power: The contenders

Thursday, January 10, 2008

A new generation of nuclear power stations in the UK has been given the formal go-ahead by the government.

Ministers have invited energy companies to submit plans to build new nuclear plants, which will replace the ageing fleet that currently provides about 18% of the UK's electricity.

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Areva’s power play sets off sparks

Thursday, January 10, 2008

FT, January 10 2008 19:59: The new year has hardly begun and already the first salvoes over the future of the world’s biggest nuclear group, Areva, have been fired.

Last week it emerged that Areva had held preliminary talks with French construction group Vinci about a partnership to build nuclear power stations in the UK and elsewhere.

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EDF nuclear power plant construction faces legal challenge

Friday, December 7, 2007

December 04, 2007: 05:55 AM EST

PARIS, Dec. 4, 2007 (Thomson Financial) -- French anti-nuclear group Sortir du Nucleaire said it has mounted a legal challenge to the construction of EDF's Flamanville nuclear reactor and hopes to get work stopped.

EDF said the construction of the 1,650 megawatts EPR European pressurised water reactor, to be supplied by Areva, has started following ground preparation at the site.

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EUR 3 billion price tag for construction delay on new reactor at Finland’s Olkiluoto NPP

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG - According to the Elfii consortium of large Finnish electricity users, a construction delay in an experimental new reactor design at Olkiluoto NPP will cost Nordic electricity users EUR 3 billion, the Finnish business daily Kauppalehti reported. Birthe Weijola, 12/09-2007 Elfi director Antti Koskelainen is quoted saying that the cost of the delay is comparable to the investment cost for the whole reactor.

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Finnish plant demonstrates nuclear power industry's perennial problems

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

By Alan Katz, Bloomberg News, September 6, 2007

Martin Landtman hunched forward in his shirtsleeves as a June storm on Finland's Baltic coast drenched the construction site of the world's most powerful nuclear reactor. As project manager for TVO, the joint venture buying the plant, Landtman has weathered far worse annoyances than rain.

Flawed welds for the reactor's steel liner, unusable coolant pipes and suspect concrete in the foundation already have pushed back the delivery date of the Olkiluoto-3 unit by at least two years.

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The Perils of Pushing Atomic Energy as the Climate Change Panacea

Thursday, May 10, 2007

By Philip Bethge (Der Spiegel)

Is nuclear power on the verge of a renaissance? Its supporters argue that atomic energy is the only way to satisfy humanity’s hunger for more energy without aggravating the effects of global warming. Critics, however, regard the nuclear hype as over-simplistic optimism fueled by an industry in distress.

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