BERLIN, Sept 15 (Reuters) - The southern German nuclear power station Neckarwestheim 2 reopened on Sept. 14 after a maintenance outage begun on Aug. 23/24, operator utility EnBW said in a statement on Monday.
Wholesale power traders had expected news about the 1,400-megawatt unit to factor this into supply calculations.
Germany's environment minister made himself out to be a crisis manager in the scandal surrounding the Asse nuclear waste storage facility. But the problem has not been solved -- and the issue threatens to derail the CDU’s plans to postpone Germany's nuclear phaseout.
Sept 11 (Reuters) - RWE AG, Germany's largest producer of power, said on Thursday it was prepared to invest profits from its nuclear power stations in renewable energy if it was allowed to operate the atomic plants longer.
German utilities, including RWE, E.ON AG, Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg and Vattenfall's German unit, are seeking to convince the German government to allow them to operate their nuclear power stations longer.
A report published in Germany's Focus magazine alleges that authorities in the state of Lower Saxony were aware of safety issues at the Asse II atomic storage facility 15 years ago.
The Focus report says the state government, led by the Social Democratic Party (SPD) at the time, commissioned a technical report on potential hazards at the converted salt mine in 1991.
BERLIN, Sept. 3 (UPI) -- Radioactive water is leaking from an old salt and potash mine in Germany that had been converted to a storage facility for nuclear waste.
The discovery of the leak has reopened debate about nuclear power, theerman magazine Der Spiegel reports. German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel described the mine as "the most problematic nuclear facility in Europe."
Since the end of the cold war, the United Nations has logged more than 800 incidents in which radioactive material has gone missing, often from poorly guarded sites. Who is taking it - and should we be worried? Julian Borger investigates.
Cold rain beats down outside the Biblis power station (pictured above), but behind the airlock that isolates the slightly radioactive containment area, the temperature rises to uncomfortable levels. Past several other layers of steel, the nuclear reactor hums gently.
“See these beams,” says Frank Staude, an engineer for the RWE power group, sweat streaming down his cheeks. “They will protect us against the kind of earthquake that would leave no skyscraper in Frankfurt standing.”
Aug. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Germany's Environment Ministry is considering digging up radioactive waste, rather than leaving it buried for ever, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported, citing a government document.
Storage sites would need to be labeled and accessible for 1,000 years, so that future generations can retrieve the waste to neutralize or employ it as an energy source, the Frankfurt-based newspaper said, citing the document.
Britain has a stockpile of plutonium and uranium that, if converted to fuel, could be worth nearly £160 billion and power three nuclear reactors for 60 years, scientists say.
The future of the stockpile - largely left over from burning fuel - will be decided by ministers over the next year, The Times has learnt. Its value is estimated as the equivalent of 2.6 billion barrels of oil.
Aug. 5 (Bloomberg) -- The German government should abandon its planned phase-out of nuclear energy to help rein in surging electricity prices and protect the environment, according to proposals drawn up by an energy taskforce under Economy Minister Michael Glos.
The plan, in the form of a three-page draft of ''key points'' toward a nuclear-energy law, urges the government to extend the running of nuclear reactors to at least 40 years from a maximum 32 years at present, Berlin-based ministry spokeswoman Charlotte Lauer said today by phone. It is a recommendation only and hasn't been endorsed by Glos, Lauer said.
