As the government makes ever more enthusiastic pronouncements about new nuclear reactors for the UK, the outlook is brightening for British Energy, which owns the bulk of the country’s nuclear plants.
On Thursday, John Hutton, the business secretary, revealed in the Financial Times that the government would pull out all the stops to maximise expansion of nuclear power and would drop its previous commitment to holding a minimum 29.9 per cent stake in British Energy.
Estonia, one of the smallest European Union countries, is considering its own nuclear power plant and wants to use its experience of producing power from oil shale in other countries, the state energy company said.
Estonia is the world’s most dependent country on oil shale, producing 90% of its power from the sedimentary rock, though it is one of the most polluting of fossil fuels. Estonia accounts for 70% of the world’s processed oil shale, though large deposits are also found in the United States and other countries like Australia, Brazil and Jordan.
PRAGUE (Thomson Financial) - CEZ is completing a feasibility study on the development of nuclear energy in the Czech Republic and it is possible that an environmental impact assessment (EIA) on the expansion of the group's Temelin nuclear power plant could start this year, a company spokeswoman said.
VILNIUS, Lithuania — Lithuania's nuclear power negotiator said Thursday there is only a small chance the European Union will grant an extension to the country's atomic power plant.
The Soviet-era Ignalina plant, similar in design to the Chernobyl unit that exploded in 1986, must close by 2010 under Lithuania's agreement with the European Union.
The UK is committed to a dramatic and rapid expansion of nuclear power, ensuring new stations generate "significantly" more of the country's electricity than the existing stock, according to John Hutton, the business secretary.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Hutton also dropped the UK government's previous commitment to maintaining a minimum 29.9 per cent stake in British Energy, the nuclear generator.
VIENNA Thomson Financial - Greenpeace activists 'walled in' a branch of one of Austria's largest banks, Erste Bank AG, in the centre of Vienna on this morning in protest against its financing of the Mochovce nuclear plant in Slovakia.
A group of around thirty activists erected a brickwall in front of the bank's main entrance on one of the capital's busy pedestrian zones and called for Erste Bank to cancel its loan to the Slovak utility Slovenske Elektrarne.
An influential advisory body has cancelled a press conference scheduled for Wednesday afternoon because it is divided on what advice to give the government on nuclear power, reports ANP news service.
By Clive Cookson, Science Editor
A big study of nuclear workers has suggested an unexpectedly strong link between radiation exposure and heart disease.
The study, published yesterday, analysed health records and radiation doses for 65,000 people employed at four nuclear sites - Sellafield, Capenhurst and Springfields, in north-west England, and Chaplecross in south-west Scotland - between 1946 and 2005.
SOFIA, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Bulgaria should push ahead with plans to build a new nuclear power plant rather than opt for wind and solar power to solve its energy problems, the economy and energy minister said on Wednesday.
Petar Dimitrov told a conference estimates showed that his Balkan country's wind power potential was equal to the capacity of 2,000 megawatts of its Kozloduy nuclear power plant, which supplies about 33 percent of Bulgaria's power.
With France pushing for greater cooperation on nuclear power with Romania, the Canadians who first introduced nuclear tech to Romania argue the Gallic technology comes at a cost the country may not be willing to pay.
Romania plans to build a second nuclear power station, but its rumoured interest in French nuclear technology may prove too expensive an option. News of the country’s flirtation with French nuclear technology arose when President Nicolas Sarkozy visited Bucharest last February.
