SOFIA, Feb 20 (Reuters) - East European countries have jumped on the global nuclear renaissance bandwagon, but numerous hurdles facing atomic power mean projects could be delayed and some even abandoned, analysts say.
Slovakia, Romania and Hungary plan to build new reactors or extend the life of existing ones, driven by growing energy needs at home and European Union (EU) targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
A hoax message passed via e-mail is doing the rounds of the Internet, claiming that a nuclear accident has taken place in the Mikkeli region of Finland. There is no nuclear facility near Mikkeli.
The spam mail is made particularly confusing as it is written in Finnish - though as with all the previous Englsh-language spam out there, the language skills of the author leave something to be desired.
PARIS, Feb 20 (Reuters) - EDF said on Wednesday its nuclear output availability rate dropped by 3.4 percentage points to 80.2 percent in 2007 due to heavy works on its steam generators and low production levels at its Paluel plant.
MOSCOW, February 19 (Itar-Tass) - The Zamoskvoretsky court of Moscow recognized ex-nuclear energy minister Yevgeny Adamov guilty of stealing over 30 million dollars.
The court considered proved his guilt of fraud and abuse of office.
“The court has ascertained that defendant Adamov has committed fraud by stealing a major amount of property abusing his office, which entailed substantial damage to the interests of the state,” the judge said on Tuesday.
Judah Grunstein | 13 Feb 2008
PARIS -- When Nicolas Sarkozy took office last May, everyone expected him to be an active president. Known for his relentless pace and tireless work ethic, Sarkozy had promised to reinvigorate France's foreign policy, which had suffered from an accumulation of failure and fatigue under his predecessor, Jacques Chirac. To that end, Sarkozy has not disappointed. In a little over eight months as president, he has visited 25 countries on four continents, strengthening historic bonds (America), nurturing new ones (China, India), and above all raising France's profile around the world.
ISTANBUL (Thomson Financial) - French nuclear giant Areva said it is interested in a planned tender for the construction of Turkey's first nuclear power plant.
'We are going to meet the (Turkish) energy minister (Hilmi Guler) and we will clearly indicate to him that the Areva company is interested,' Gabriel Saltarelli, head of the company's commercial affairs in Central and Eastern Europe, told reporters.
Residents of the town of Novi Han, 12km southeast of Sofia, voted in favour of shutting down the nuclear waste facility near the town, in a referendum on February 18 2008.
The turnout for the referendum was 66.2 per cent, passing the 51 per cent threshold for it to be considered valid, with 99 per cent of the 1221 town's residents who went to polling stations voting in favour of shutting down the facility, Focus news agency reported.
Sellafield is to scrap the £1m plus it spends every year subsidising workers' travel to and from the site.
The money is paid directly to Stagecoach and Northern Rail.
The companies, in turn, provide cheaper fares for workers but Sellafield Ltd has confirmed that bosses are looking to end the subsidy by April 2010.
A CONTROVERSIAL £6 million nuclear decontamination plant planned for Workington can go ahead.
Studsvik UK was granted a nuclear site licence by the Health and Safety Executive on Wednesday.
The plant will decontaminate low-level radioactive metal from the nuclear industry and sell it on to be reused.
Dr Paul Dorfman is Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust Research Fellow and Senior Research Fellow at Warwick University. He argues that government policy on nuclear power is wrong.
The two core arguments made by the nuclear industry are security of supply and global warming. Let's take global warming first. If we were to rebuild our entire nuclear stock we would mitigate only 4 per cent of our CO2 emissions, so how can it be about global warming? If you're serious about CO2, then get serious about transport, or other forms of energy.
