Nuclear power in Europe

Robots will soon begin dismantling the plant which gave Dounreay the title of being the world's nuclear dustbin.

Workers are currently drilling through the concrete that surrounds the uranium fuel reprocessing plant which was to receive spent nuclear fuel from reactors around the world, with the waste being stored at the Caithness facility for up to 25 years; a facility that outraged environmentalists.

VIENNA, September 29 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will provide $17 million to help improve safety at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the site of the world's worst civilian nuclear disaster, and fully decommission it, a top Russian nuclear official said on Monday.

Three reactors of the Chernobyl plant continued to operate for several years after reactor number four exploded in 1986, the last reactor shutting down in 2000. The reactors still contain nuclear fuel rods, and require constant monitoring. The fourth reactor is housed in a Soviet-era sarcophagus set to be replaced by a $1.4 bln metal structure.

Russian engineers announced plans on building high-temperature nuclear reactor with gas cooling in our country by 2020.

Existing atomic power plants are aimed at producing electricity and low-temperature heat for warming and water desalination. High-temperature reactors will expand plant workability.

Temperatures about 1000 degrees Centigrade allow using heat in other field of economy, such as hydrogen synthesis, fertilizer production, metallurgical industry and etc.

Germany's environment minister made himself out to be a crisis manager in the scandal surrounding the Asse nuclear waste storage facility. But the problem has not been solved -- and the issue threatens to derail the CDU’s plans to postpone Germany's nuclear phaseout.