Nuclear power in Europe

PARIS A French-led consortium will build a new shelter to encase the reactor at Ukraine's Chernobyl power station that exploded in 1986 in history's worst nuclear accident.

The new shelter will enclose the existing concrete "sarcophagus" erected hastily after the 1986 accident, which has been crumbling and leaking radiation for more than a decade.

The contract for the Novarka consortium, including Bouygues SA and Vinci SA, will be worth more than €430 million (US$593.14 million), Vinci said in a statement Tuesday night.

EUOBSERVER / CLIMATE TECHNOLOGY - For the millions of Europeans who mistrust nuclear power, it may cause goose-pimples to think that at least six new plants will soon join the 152 reactors already fizzing away on EU soil. But despite fresh talk of how nuclear can cut CO2, the industry is still struggling to get over the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

A visitor to a typical reactor could be convinced the atom is a magic key to the EU's energy woes: standing on the core, just 10 metres under one's feet, splitting uranium atoms generate enough power (1,100 MW) to light up all the homes in Finland for a year. There is no sound. There is no smell. As you leave, a scanning machine says "You have not been contaminated."

Nuclear Engineering International - The International Energy Agency's review of the UK energy industry has called for a nuclear waste and decommissioning fund to be set up.

The International Energy Agency's (IEA's) recently published The United Kingdom 2006 Review, the second of its Energy Policies of IEA Countries series, praised the UK energy market framework but highlighted the need for a nuclear waste policy, covering all types of waste, and called for the establishment of a liabilities fund to pay for decommissioning and waste disposal.

The death of an anti-nuclear protester, run over this weekend by a train carrying radioactive waste, has prompted new unease in France about the transportation of nuclear materials through the countryside.

Environmental campaigners say that the death of Sebastien Briat, 21, who had chained himself to the franrailway track in front of a train carrying 12 containers of radioactive waste, illustrated the dangers of this kind of transportation. Activists said the accident showed how difficult it was to guarantee the security of the cargo as it travelled along the nation's rail network.