Climate change is an often heard argument for the once called nuclear "renaissance". However, if one looks closer, there was something fishy about the industry using climate change protection as its most prominent feature... » Read more
More then thirty years of debate, and the controversy remains as polarised as ever. This website (to be fair - whose maintainer is anti-nuclear) collects news about nuclear power in Europe, sorted by nuclear power plant, type of power plant, country etc.
By presenting different (media) angles on current nuclear issues, we hope to be able to cut out some spin, either pro or against, and to allow the reader to make up his or her own mind about today's pro's and con's of nuclear power.
In the menu on the right you can select your country, the nuclear power plant in your neighbourhood, or your favourite company and read latest (most English) news about it.
Latest nuclear news
EDF faces challenge over nuclear technology
Saturday, May 17, 2008EDF, the French utility, could face a legal challenge over the technology it has decided to use in building Britain’s latest generation of power stations.
EDF announced last May that it planned to employ Areva, the French nuclear energy group, but its decision, which was made without giving rival reactor manufacturers an opportunity to bid for the contract, could be illegal under European law, according to Ros Kellaway, partner and head of EU competition law in Eversheds.
Prospects for nuclear financing
Saturday, May 17, 2008Silvia Pavoni reports on the potential and pitfalls of private finance for the UK´s new nuclear power station building programme.
Politicians are famous for announcing grand policy initiatives that have not been properly thought through and that then prove unworkable in practice. The UK government´s new nuclear power programme might be seen as one such ill thought out venture. It wants to build 10 new nuclear plants, replacing existing ones that are due to close, and proposes that the financing should be fulfilled entirely by the private sector. The first plant is planned to become operational by 2017 and the government hopes that the scheme will increase nuclear energy supply from the current 19% of national consumption.
Power plant wants to use plutonium
Saturday, May 17, 2008The Netherlands only commercial power plant at Borssele wants to begin using plutonium to generate electricity, the Financieele Dagblad reports on Thursday.
The plant’s owners, regional electricity firm EPZ, has made a formal application to the environment ministry.
British Energy bidding war hopes recede
Saturday, May 17, 2008Hopes of a bidding war for British Energy were dealt a blow yesterday after it became clear that Vattenfall, Suez and Eon were not planning to bid for the UK nuclear group.
This leaves RWE of Germany and France's EDF as the most likely bidders for the UK government's 35 per cent stake in British Energy before the deadline of Friday, May 9. Both companies - which have power generation operations in the UK - declined to comment.
Nuclear diplomacy
Saturday, May 17, 2008British Energy proves a slow sell
EVEN today, 13 years after it was built, Britain's newest nuclear-power station looks futuristic, with its landmark white containment dome and the blue haze of Cerenkov radiation in the cooling pond. In contrast to the huge furnaces needed to burn coal, a reactor core at Sizewell B roughly the size of a smallish lorry produces 3% of Britain's electricity. But its construction was so controversial—sparking one of the longest planning inquiries ever—that, after it was finished, nuclear power was abandoned for a generation.
Fuel for scandal
Saturday, May 17, 2008An ailing new nuclear plant at Sellafield will cost taxpayers billions, unless Gordon Brown has the courage to shut it down
Finnish poll suggests opposition to sixth nuclear reactor
Saturday, May 17, 2008Helsinki - A majority of Finnish voters oppose the construction of a sixth nuclear reactor, according to a survey published Thursday. Finland currently operates four nuclear reactors and construction of a fifth
reactor is underway at Olkiluoto, south-western Finland, where two reactors are operating.
The survey suggested 53 per cent opposed building a sixth reactor while 34 per cent had no objections to additional reactors.
What Nuclear Renaissance?
Saturday, May 17, 2008If you listen to the rhetoric, nuclear power is back. Smashing atoms will replace burning carbon-based coal, gas and oil. In the face of a disaster movie-like future of runaway climate change--bringing drought, floods, famine and social breakdown--carbon-free nukes are cast as the deus ex machina to save us at the last minute.
The Kazakh Rockefeller of Nuclear Fuel
Saturday, May 17, 2008KAMENOGORSK, Kazakhstan — The flame-licked doors of a hydrogen furnace clattered open at a Cold War-era bomb factory in Kazakhstan's Ural Mountains, spilling a tray of baked metal capsules into the pale winter light. Each enriched-uranium pellet the size of a Brazil nut packs almost as much energy as a ton of coal.
Nuclear waste: Huntsman slams door on Italian import
Saturday, May 17, 2008Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. has wisely waded into the fray, and from all indications, dealt a knock-out blow to EnergySolutions' plan to import low-level radioactive waste from Italy's nuclear power industry.
Huntsman said he will instruct his representative on the board of the Northwest Interstate Compact on Low-level Radioactive Waste, state Department of Environmental Quality Deputy Director Bill Sinclair, to vote against the plan on May 8. And Sinclair says he will comply with the governor's request.