Bulgaria

Rosatom woos EU with guaranteed low electricity price

Thursday, April 16, 2015

An official of Russian state nuclear firm Rosatom told a Brussels audience that his company could guarantee a levelized price for electricity of $50/MWh from new nuclear plants it builds, if the client chooses the firm's services for their lifecycle. According to EU policies, however, fuel supply should be diversified.

Speaking at an event organised by New Nuclear Watch Europe, Kirill Komarov, First Deputy CEO of Rosatom, said that his company was the only one able to guarantee a low price for electricity, if European countries chose the full package of its services.

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Westinghouse urges EU to break dependency on Russian nuclear fuel

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Westinghouse, the Japanese-US atomic group, is pressing the EU to introduce competition rules that will break eastern Europe’s dependence on Russian nuclear fuel.

While the crisis in Ukraine has focused attention on Europe’s vulnerability to a cut in supplies of gas from Russia, Westinghouse argues that Brussels must also respond to similar security risks posed by Moscow’s control of nuclear fuel in the eastern EU.

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Bulgaria signs nuclear deal with Westinghouse

Friday, August 1, 2014

SOFIA, Aug 1 (Reuters) - Bulgaria, one of five EU states that depend totally on Russia for nuclear fuel, and Westinghouse Electric Company signed a shareholder agreement on Friday paving the way for construction of a new nuclear reactor estimated to cost $5 billion.

The deal, which still requires the approval of Bulgaria's next government, will help the Balkan country reduce its energy dependence on Russia at a time of increased tensions between Moscow and the European Union over Ukraine.

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The EU's nuclear links with Russia

Monday, July 28, 2014

The EU has 18 Russian-designed nuclear power plants

Following the loss of the Malaysian airliner last week, European leaders are once again wrestling with the question of how to respond to Russia over its role in the Ukraine crisis.

They are reluctant to get tough, much more so than the United States.

The EU could easily end up doing itself a lot of economic harm, most obviously if Russia were to respond by turning down the gas.

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Emergency shutdown at Bulgaria nuclear plant after hydrogen leak in cooling system

Monday, April 15, 2013

SOFIA, Bulgaria — Officials say a turbo generator at Bulgaria’s only nuclear power station has been shut down due to a hydrogen leak in its cooling system but insist there is no danger to the public.

A statement Monday from the Kozloduy power plant said the component that was shut down was part of its conventional, non-nuclear unit. It said “there were no changes in the radioactivity level at the plant.”

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Bulgarian Parliament Confirms Decision to Scrap Belene N-Plant

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Bulgaria's Parliament confirmed Wednesday the country's decision to abandon the Belene nuclear power plant project.

The vote was prompted by a recent referendum on the construction of a new nuclear power plant in the country.

Under the law, the recent referendum results imposed for the Belene NPP to be put back on the Parliament's agenda, as voter turnout slightly exceeded 20%. 61% of the voters said "yes" to the construction of a new nuclear power plant; 39% cast a "no" ballot.

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Continued EU support for nuclear plant closures?

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Lithuania's prime minister says ending support in 2020 could delay the full closure of its Ignalina plant.

Leaders of the European Union's member states are expected at their summit next week (7-8 February) to agree to cover roughly half the costs of decommissioning Soviet-era nuclear power plants, as part of a deal on the EU's long-term budget.

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Bulgaria set for nuclear power referendum

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Bulgarians are set to vote in a referendum on whether a new nuclear power plant should be built.

The opposition Socialist party called the vote because it wants the government to reverse its decision not to build a new plant at Belene.

The first referendum in Bulgaria's post-Communist history has polarised opinion and is seen as a precursor of general elections later this year.

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Flaws make restart of two Belgian nuclear plants ‘hazardous’: Study

Friday, January 11, 2013

Restarting two Belgian nuclear power plants which have been shut since the discovery of micro-cracks in their reactor vessels would be a hazardous move with potentially “catastrophic consequences”, according to a new study commissioned by the Green Party group in the European Parliament.

“A possible failure of the reactor due to sudden crack growth in case of local thermal stresses cannot be excluded and would have catastrophic consequences, especially in the vicinity of densely populated and high-economic activity areas,” it says.

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Bulgaria’s political battle lines over nuclear energy referendum

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

The political picture that emerges as Bulgaria’s parties line up their positions regarding the January 27 2013 referendum on the future of nuclear energy in the country is rather perplexing.

The referendum is the outcome of an initiative by the opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) to go to the country on the future of the Belene nuclear power station, an issue on which ruling centre-right party GERB has flip-flopped spectacularly. As a result of a series of political complexities, any reference to Belene has been removed from the question.

There are now, in turn, a number of complexities to consider in looking at political parties’ positions in the referendum.

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