A number of countries in central, eastern and southeastern Europe plan to build new nuclear power reactors or extend the life of existing ones to meet growing domestic demand and replace ageing power capacity.
The plans mirror a worldwide nuclear boom as part of the solution to climate change.
Budapest/Vienna - Faulty maintenance procedures led to an incident in the Hungarian nuclear power plant in Paks on Monday, but no radioactivity was released, a report by Hungarian authorities to the UN nuclear agency said. It was the second incident in Paks caused by human error since 2006, the Hungarian Atomic Energy Authority said in its report to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
On Monday morning, two workers failed to properly seal an air- locked area during maintenance of the first unit of the power plant, 100 kilometres south of Budapest.
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti commentator Tatyana Sinitsyna) - Ukrainian politicians have made one more move aimed at easing their dependence on Russia's nuclear fuel supplies.
In late March, Ukraine's nuclear power company Energoatom signed a five-year contract with U.S.-based Westinghouse Electric Company to provide nuclear fuel to three Ukrainian reactors at the Yuzhnoukrainsky nuclear power plant in 2011-2015.
The capture of nuclear materials in Slovakia last week raises security questions about borderless travel.
By Michael J. Jordan | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor, Bratislava, Slovakia
The {{post id="uranium-could-have-made-dirty-bomb" text="capture of over a pound of powderized uranium" target="_self"}} in Slovakia last week has served as a sharp reminder to Europe, though nuclear experts have cast doubt on the assertion by local law-enforcement officials that terrorists could have used it for a "dirty bomb."
BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) — Two Hungarians and a Ukrainian arrested in an attempted sale of uranium were peddling material believed to be from the former Soviet Union, and it was enriched enough to be used in a radiological "dirty bomb," police said Thursday.
The three, who were arrested Wednesday in eastern Slovakia and Hungary, were trying to sell about a pound of uranium in powder form, said First Police Vice President Michal Kopcik.
While Hungarian citizens are getting more conscious about environmental issues and more interested in companies’ environmental record, an environmentally responsible image often remains an empty PR exercise, said Greenpeace spokesperson Szabina Mózes. “It looks interesting when we see an advertisement in which the Paks Nuclear Plant Zrt is photographed in a beautiful green environment, saying that this is ‘The energy of the future,’ but it’s hardly believable that nuclear energy is a clean solution.” Paks Nuclear Power Plant Zrt has also sponsored radio programs dedicated to environmental issues; positive action to be sure, Mózes opined, but such activities do not make nuclear energy environmentally friendly, nor do people believe they do. Mózes went on to say that such PR efforts may even result in a growing skepticism of consumers who have already learned not to believe in advertising.
