MILAN, Sept 19 (Reuters) - Italy, which rejected nuclear power 20 years ago, may see a nuclear plant up and running in 2017, the country's biggest utility, Enel, said on Friday.
Italy banned nuclear power after holding a referendum on the issue in 1987, following the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine. But the nuclear-friendly government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has pledged to lift the ban and create conditions for a nuclear energy relaunch by 2012.
Twenty-two years ago, the most serious accident in nuclear history disrupted the lives of millions of people. Massive amounts of radioactive materials were released into the environment resulting in a radioactive cloud that spread over much of Europe. The greatest contamination occurred around the Chernobyl nuclear power station in areas that are now part of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. People in Czechoslovakia were not in acute danger, but like others in the communist block they learnt about the nuclear accident many days after it happened and the media censorship ordered by the communist regime prevented them from taking even the most basic precautions.
Slovakia and Russia may intensify their mutual co-operation mainly in the field of nuclear energy, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and Russian government vice-chairman Igor Setchin agreed at their working lunch in Bratislava.
"I believe that the Italian company Enel will launch the completion of the construction of the 3rd and 4th blocks in the Mochovce nuclear power plant, and that Russian technology suppliers will be asked to co-operate (in this project)," said Fico.
BRATISLAVA, Aug 25 (Reuters) - Slovak power firm Slovenske Elektrarne (SE) has launched a tender to find a builder to finish two new blocks at the Mochovce nuclear power plant, it said in the Official Journal of the European Union on Monday.
The power generator, managed by Italian utility and 66 percent shareholder Enel, said bidders should submit letters of interest by Sept 18. It said it expected final bids would be due on Dec 8.
BRATISLAVA, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Slovakia is worried power generator Slovenske Elektrarne (SE) may be late finishing a second nuclear power plant, a delay which could damage the economy, Prime Minister Robert Fico said in remarks carried by a newspaper on Tuesday.
Fico asked SE, 66-percent owned by Italy's utility Enel, to present a detailed timetable of work on the two 440 MW blocks at the Mochovce nuclear plant, which should be completed in 2012-2013 at a cost of 1.6 billion euros.
ELEKTROSTAL, July 29 (Itar-Tass) -- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has taken a look at technology of nuclear fuel production for nuclear power plants during his visit to the machine-building plant Elemash on Tuesday.
He was shown the whole technological chain – from production of “nuclear tablets” to heat clusters.
The plant’s director general Oleg Kryukov said “this is wholly our production - design, software and drawings; we buy parts abroad”.
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.
Bratislava, 16 July: Russian open joint-stock company TVEL has maintained its position in Slovakia, having won the tender for the supply of nuclear fuel for five power-generating units of the local Mochovce and Bohunice nuclear power plants until 2015, management company Slovenskie Elektrarne has reported.
These plants were built to Russian design and equipped with VVER-440 reactors.
BRUSSELS, July 15 (Reuters) - The European Commission recommended on Tuesday that Slovakia improve the safety of two planned new units at its Mochovce nuclear power plant.
"Even though the project shows compliance with current national regulations as well as international recommendations ... the Commission recommended a set of additional measures," Commission spokesman Ferran Tarradellas Espuny told a briefing.
Journalist Goldirova sent, from Brussels, a report on a letter written by the Slovak prime minister, in which he warned the European Commission that, unless it soon announced its position on the completion of Mochovce [nuclear power station], the Slovak Government would have to "consider all options, including a proposal to postpone the decommissioning of the second block of the V1 reactor [in Jaslovske Bohunice nuclear power station] until 2010." It follows from the report that Prime Minister Fico now behaves in the same way towards the EU as he behaves in domestic politics.
