By Patrick Lannin and Nerijus Adomaitis
VISAGINAS, Lithuania (Reuters) - When Lithuania's sole nuclear power station closes next year, European Union officials will sigh with relief, but nearby residents are already fretting over the future of their town.
The EU's concern is safety. The Ignalina plant has the same type of reactors as Chernobyl in Ukraine, where a 1986 reactor meltdown caused the world's worst nuclear disaster.
MADRID, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Spain needs to build at least 13,000 megawatts worth of nuclear plants to achieve a feasible power generation mix by 2030, according to a study released by the country's nuclear lobby on Thursday.
Spain's eight existing nuclear power reactors each produce about 1,000 MW of electricity, but new reactors being built in other countries are much bigger.
STOCKHOLM, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Utility Vattenfall is putting a string of nuclear mishaps behind it and sees a bright future for atomic power in Europe, although it cannot yet say when its hobbled German plants will be back online.
"You should be a little humble and not overconfident but we have taken a lot of measures and we are definitely on the right track to be the benchmark of our industry," Lars Josefsson, chief executive of the Swedish state-owned firm, told Reuters.
STOCKHOLM, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Vattenfall Chief Executive Lars Josefsson said on Thursday he was not prepared to estimate when the Brunsbuettel and Kruemmel nuclear plants in Germany would come back on line.
Josefsson told a conference call on Vattenfall's 2007 results he was "not prepared to give any estimation" on when the plants, jointly owned with E.ON, would come back on line.
YEREVAN, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Russia said on Wednesday it will bid in a tender to build a nuclear power station in Armenia to replace an ageing Chernobyl-style plant that has provoked safety concerns.
Armenia, which imports most of its energy, has said it will close down its Soviet-built Metzamor nuclear reactor, which supplies up 40 percent of the country's power, only when it can add new generating capacity. The government said last year it would hold a tender to build a new 1,000 megawatt reactor at the site near Yerevan, which could be ready by 2016.
7 February 2008 | 10:22 | FOCUS News Agency
Skopje. Macedonia should participate in the construction of the new Belene NPP, as Bulgaria proposed last year to Macedonia to join the energy giant, the Macedonian Spic newspaper writes.
Macedonian experts think in this way the country will find a long-term solution of the electricity shortage problem.
LONDON, Feb 4 (Reuters) - British Energy will inspect three more reactors at its Hunterston B and Hinkley Point nuclear power stations later this year after stopping one unit over the weekend for boiler checks, a spokeswoman for the company said on Monday.
VILNIUS, Lithuania — Lithuania's national power company on Monday selected a Finnish-Lithuanian team to conduct a crucial environmental impact study for the construction of a new nuclear power plant.
FRANKFURT, Feb 4 (Reuters) - A fire started at Vattenfall Europe's currently closed Kruemmel nuclear plant in northern German but was quickly put out by the plant's own fire brigade on Monday, the operator and local government said.
No radioactive substances had been released and all relevant authorities had been informed, Vattenfall said in a statement.
France understands the feasibility of building a nuclear power plant in Belarus, French Ambassador Mireille Musso said at a news conference in Minsk on Monday.
She said that the matter was topical in the contest of effort to diversify energy supplies.
