EDF is hoping to secure a multi-billion euro windfall by extending the lifecycle of its nuclear power stations. This could prove crucial to maintaining its top grade credit rating as it invests billlions in acquisitions and plant renewal.
The energy group this week set out in detail the costs and expected gains from the planned investment in its 58 nuclear power stations that could enable it to run reactors for up to 60 years, against the current lifecycle of 40 years.
PARIS - (Dow Jones)- French nuclear utility Electricite de France SA Thursday announced higher costs for a reactor it's building in France and said its ambition to lead a worldwide wave of building new nuclear plants means total capital expenditure of between EUR40 billion and EUR50 billion by 2020.
The net financing requirements for EDF over the same period should be between EUR12 billion and EUR20 billion, EDF said, given the involvement of partners in projects in France, China, the U.S. and possibly the U.K.
PARIS, Nov 25 (Reuters) - French energy strikers cut a total of 4,000 megawatts of nuclear capacity and 1,000 MW of thermal capacity since Monday night, an official at the CGT union told Reuters on Tuesday.
French strikers are holding a 24-hour strike to protest against salaries and pensions.
"The strike has cut a total of 5,000 MW, this is a very positive outcome for us," the union official said, adding that strikers had been warned by EDF not to cut more capacity to avoid endangering the supply/demand balance.
PARIS, Nov 24 (Reuters) - French atomic energy firms may be over-confident when they say their plans to expand abroad will survive the credit crisis unscathed.
Some analysts say financing problems, if prolonged, are bound to delay schemes in a sector with such high capital costs.
France hopes to use its unrivalled atomic expertise to lead a global nuclear revival spurred by rising fossil fuel prices and concerns over climate change. Its firms may even benefit as a slowing economy lowers costs for current building in France.
PARIS, Nov 18 (Reuters) - EDF said on Tuesday it would comply within the next three months with the French nuclear safety authority's order to improve the piping of explosive liquids at the southern nuclear plant of Cruas.
The nuclear safety authority ASN said in a note published on its website that it had detected rust on pipes transporting hydrogen, an explosive gas used to treat the water that cools the reactor, into premises housing key safety equipment.
DOHA, Nov 10 (Reuters) - French oil and gas giant Total is targeting nuclear energy to drive growth long after oil and gas output peak, a top executive said on Monday.
"In the future, energy demand will be constrained by tight supply," Arnaud Chaperon, Total's senior vice president for electricity and new energies, said in a presentation to a nuclear energy conference in Qatar.
PARIS, Nov 12 (Reuters) - France's EDF plans to start the new-generation EPR reactor under construction at the Flamanville nuclear site in northwest France in 2012, and not in 2013 as stated by Areva earlier, EDF said on Wednesday.
"EDF confirms the European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) will start in 2012," EDF said in a statement.
BERLIN (AP) — Almost 15,000 anti-nuclear demonstrators protested Saturday against a shipment of reprocessed nuclear waste being transported to a storage site in northern Germany, police said.
German police were working to free three demonstrators who had chained themselves to railway tracks near the western city of Woerth, preventing the shipment from crossing from France into Germany.
PARIS (Reuters) - Tests on water tables under French nuclear sites, after a major uranium leak in the south earlier this year, showed there were no significant environmental or health dangers, a government committee said on Friday.
Plant operator Areva said in July that 30 cubic meters of liquid containing non-enriched uranium was accidentally poured onto the ground and into a river at the Tricastin nuclear site in southeastern France.
Thousands of anti-radiation pills have been handed out to schools in Portsmouth and Gosport for the visit of a French nuclear sub.
Potassium iodate tablets are being held at schools within a 2km area of Portsmouth Naval Base in the event of a nuclear reactor meltdown.
The 113,000 pills – given out every time a nuclear sub visits the city –are designed to stop radiation from being absorbed by the thyroid gland.
