Nuclear power in Europe

A “very serious” fault has been discovered in a French nuclear power station which is at the heart of David Cameron’s strategy to “keep the lights on” in Britain in the next decade.

The future of two nuclear reactors planned for Hinkley Point in Somerset has been thrown into doubt by the discovery of a potentially catastrophic mistake in the construction of an identical EPR power plant in Normandy.

PARIS--France's oldest nuclear plant Fessenheim, in the east of the country bordering Germany, won't be dismantled until 2018 at the earliest due to the plant's lengthy closing procedures, the French government mediator for the shut down of Fessenheim Francis Rol-Tanguy said in an interview with French daily Les Dernieres Nouvelles d'Alsace.

The closing of Fessenheim is seen as a litmus test for French President Francois Hollande's ability to reform the country's strategy on energy which heavily relies on its nuclear capacities. By law only the operator of a power plant or France's nuclear regulator can decide to shut down a reactor.

Areva and EDF, the French nuclear groups, have both defended the cost of new nuclear projects despite the €2bn of extra cost overruns on their flagship next-generation reactor at Flamanville in Normandy.

The news that the reactor, the first built in France for 15 years, is expected to cost €8.5bn rather than the €3.3bn first forecast comes as questions are raised about whether nuclear power remains affordable.

PARIS (Reuters) - French utility EDF has raised the cost of the construction of its next-generation nuclear reactor by more than 2 billion euros on Monday, the latest in a series of overruns for the first EPR reactor built in France.

Stricter regulation in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster contributed to bringing the total cost of the 1,600-MW Flamanville European pressurized reactor to 8.5 billion euros ($11.11 billion), the group said.