As the Lithuanian Ministry of Energy reviewed the final Ignalina nuclear power plant (NPP) decommissioning plan, it turned out that the closing price will stand at EUR 2.6 billion at least, while the closing deadline has been extended for 9 years, informs LETA/ELTA.
The initial decommissioning plane, passed back in 2005, spoke about closing the plant by 2029 for EUR 1.24 billion.
Lithuania's prime minister says ending support in 2020 could delay the full closure of its Ignalina plant.
Leaders of the European Union's member states are expected at their summit next week (7-8 February) to agree to cover roughly half the costs of decommissioning Soviet-era nuclear power plants, as part of a deal on the EU's long-term budget.
Vilnius - Lithuanian Foreign Minister Audronius Azubalis on Tuesday praised German support for a planned nuclear power station to be built in the Baltic country, describing it as a 'guarantee' to potential investors.
VILNIUS — Lithuania Thursday shut down its Soviet-era nuclear plant under an EU deal in a move set to drive up electricity prices amid an economic crisis and leave it counting on ex-master Moscow for power.
"At 11:00 pm (2100 GMT) everything went offline. It all went according to plan," Viktor Sevaldin, director of the 26-year-old plant, told AFP by telephone.
Andres Mäe, researcher of the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute, Estonia, answered questions about prospects of energy security and nuclear industry of the Baltic region.
The consortium of the Energiewerke Nord GmbH (EWN), Sintagma UAB and Ernst & Young Baltic UAB successfully completed in September 2008 the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (INPP) decommissioning management system and database (DMSD) project.
The joint team with subcontractors IBM and CORE2 provided all services according to the project schedule of 14 months. Beside the delivery of a comprehensive set of different IT equipment, an enlarged training of nominated INPP staff was performed. The project was financed by the International Ignalina Decommissioning Support Fund managed by the Central Project Management Agency with the overall value of 3.5 million EUR.
Aleksandras Abisala, chief negotiator over the extension of the Ignalina nuclear power plant, who used to speak about the considerable growth of the possibility to reach an agreement on the extension of the operation of the Ignalina nuclear power plant, now claims that Lithuania has lost this fight.
After the last week"s European Council in Brussels, when the hopes concerning the extension of the operation of the Ignalina nuclear power plant diminished, Abisala admits that Lithuania has lost the fight, lrt.lt writes.
WARSAW - Poland hopes to reduce its heavy reliance on coal, which produces harmful greenhouse gases, by building a few nuclear power plants by 2030, Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Waldemar Pawlak said on Thursday.
Pawlak's ministry is currently working on a new energy strategy designed to meet the Polish economy's booming demand for electricity and to modernize its communist-era power plants.
Vilnius - A referendum held in Lithuania to decide the future of the Baltic nation's only nuclear power plant has failed to attract the necessary number of voters to be judged valid, official sources said on Monday. Lithuania agreed to close its Ignalina nuclear power plant by 2009 as part of its deal to join the European Union in 2004. A planned replacement, to be built jointly with Estonia, Latvia and Poland, is unlikely to be ready before 2015.
VILNIUS, Oct 9 (Reuters) - Lithuania may have to defy the European Union and keep its Ignalina nuclear power plant open beyond 2009 if the EU cannot help it assure energy supplies, the prime minister and economy minister said on Thursday.
Lithuania agreed under its EU entry treaty to close Ignalina, which has the same kind of reactors as at Chernobyl in Ukraine, where the world's worst nuclear disaster happened in 1986.
