A nuclear reactor was shut down at Heysham Power Station after smoke was seen coming from the plant.
The Heysham 1 reactor was shut down at 6pm on Thursday as a precaution after smoke within some lagging on a turbine was spotted.
EDF, who run the station, said a dry powder extinguisher was used to deal with the smoke.
China is poised to make a dramatic intervention in Britain's energy future by offering to invest billions of pounds in building a series of new nuclear power stations.
Officials from China's nuclear industry have been in high-level talks with ministers and officials at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) this week about a plan that could eventually involve up to five different reactors being built at a total cost of £35bn.
British Energy said Wednesday that output from its 15 nuclear reactors reached 3.5 TWh in August, up 3% from July, following the restart of the UK generator's Dungeness B-21 reactor on August 19.
The 550 MW Dungeness B-21 unit in Kent generated power for the first time in a year in August, following an extended outage to repair a pipe adjacent to a boiler reheater.
ENERGY GAP: Power suppliers are turning back the clock to use coal-fired plants as their main source of electricity in a bid to avert potential shortages this winter.
POWER SUPPLIERS are turning back the clock to use coal-fired plants as their main source of electricity in a bid to avert potential shortages this winter.
BRITISH Energy yesterday admitted that work had fallen behind schedule at its Hartlepool and Heysham 1 nuclear power plants and that they would be unlikely to return to service until early next year.
Maintenance work is also set to cost "marginally more" than estimated, the East Kilbride-headquartered company added.
British Energy, which last month agreed a £12.5billion takeover by France's state-owned power group EDF, owns and runs the UK's eight nuclear power stations, including Torness in East Lothian.
MORE than half of Britain's nuclear power stations are either closed or working at reduced capacity, it emerged yesterday, prompting fears of power shortages next month.
Six of the UK's ten nuclear stations are not operating at full capacity. Three are completely closed, one is operating at half capacity and two have been reduced to 70 per cent because of safety fears.
Nuclear power firm British Energy looks poised to fall into foreign hands after it was reported French power giant EDF has agreed a £12.4 billion takeover of the firm.
The deal is worth 774p a share, the Wall Street Journal said, 9p higher than a rebuffed offer made in July.
LONDON, Sept 3 (Reuters) - British Energy's Heysham 2-7 nuclear power reactor was running at about a third of its capacity on Wednesday after output was cut for planned refuelling, a spokesman for the plant said.
'It is low power refuelling,' he said, without giving any indication how long the 625-megawatt reactor would have to remain at reduced output.
The credibility of the nuclear industry was shaken last night after the estimated cost of cleaning up Britain's atomic waste was raised by a further £10bn.
The latest clean-up estimate from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) suggests the commonly accepted figure of £73bn should rise to £83bn. But the agency insisted that £10bn of income from generating and fuel reprocessing plants should also be taken into account.
British Energy planned to take its Torness reactor in Scotland offline over the weekend and was not forced to do so, chief executive Bill Coley told an investor day presentation at Heysham, Lancashire Tuesday.
