TAIPEI - Taiwan is mulling transporting its nuclear waste to France for reprocessing as two of the island’s radioactive waste storage sites will reach capacity by 2011, a report said Sunday.
State-run Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) last year applied to expand the storage facilities but has so far not received approval from the Atomic Energy Council over environmental impact considerations, the China Times said.
By Peggy Hollinger in Paris
When Anne Lauvergeon took over France's nuclear group Cogema in 1999, one of her first acts was to install cameras in the fuel and waste treatment chambers of La Hague, France's highly sensitive reprocessing site on the north coast.
FT, January 10 2008 19:59: The new year has hardly begun and already the first salvoes over the future of the world’s biggest nuclear group, Areva, have been fired.
Last week it emerged that Areva had held preliminary talks with French construction group Vinci about a partnership to build nuclear power stations in the UK and elsewhere.
20 December 2007
On 17 December the first transport to France of irradiated fuel still present in Italy was completed. The first two special containers, with 34 of the 1243 fuel rods that will be reprocessed at La Hague, left the shut down Caorso nuclear power plant.
ROME, Dec 16 2007 A first shipment of uranium bars left a disused nuclear plant in northern Italy on Sunday bound for France, where they will be reprocessed in Le Hague, Normandy, the ANSA news agency reported.
The 34 uranium bars -- the first 7.5 tonnes of 235 tonnes of waste to be sent to France for disposal -- were first loaded in two casks onto a truck under heavy guard, then placed on a special train for the journey across the Alps.
By Ben Hall in Paris
Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan leader, on Monday began a five-day visit to Paris to buy arms, nuclear power and civil airliners, triggering a storm of criticism from campaigners and an outburst from a government minister who said France should not accept his “kiss of death”.
Colonel Gadaffi was last night expected to sign a clutch of contracts valued at about €10bn ($14.7bn, £7bn) with French companies at the Elysée palace following talks with Nicolas Sarkozy. The Libyan leader is looking to buy 26 Airbus aircraft, a nuclear power station, French Rafale fighters and missiles, spare parts for his fleet of Mirage fighters and military helicopters.
By Sami Torma
HELSINKI, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Finland is pressing ahead with construction of its fifth nuclear reactor but the plant has faced long delays and seems unlikely to herald a quick revival of Europe's atomic industry.
Construction of the reactor -- one of only two major atomic projects underway in largely nuclear-sceptical Western Europe -- was originally scheduled to start in 2009 but construction delays and rising costs have now pushed that back to 2011.
ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) -- France and Algeria agreed to cooperate on civilian nuclear technologies Tuesday, while French oil and gas giant Total SA signed a deal to build a petrochemical complex in the North African country.
The announcements came during French President Nicolas Sarkozy's three-day visit to Algeria, his first full state visit to the ex-French colony since his May election.
December 04, 2007: 05:55 AM EST
PARIS, Dec. 4, 2007 (Thomson Financial) -- French anti-nuclear group Sortir du Nucleaire said it has mounted a legal challenge to the construction of EDF's Flamanville nuclear reactor and hopes to get work stopped.
EDF said the construction of the 1,650 megawatts EPR European pressurised water reactor, to be supplied by Areva, has started following ground preparation at the site.
France imported "massive" levels of power to make up for a shortfall in nuclear power production in the country during October and the start of November, according to a report Monday.
The report in French daily Les Echos quotes Dominique Maillard, chairman of the French grid manager RTE, as saying state power company EDF is being forced to import "record levels" of power.
