Faced with persistent cabinet and industry lobbying and professors bearing heavy statistics, MPs have simply caved in
Polly Toynbee, Friday January 11, 2008 The Guardian
Marking the new political year, Gordon Brown promised to take "the difficult long-term decisions, even if at times it may be easier to do simpler or less difficult things". Going nuclear is a big decision and a difficult one, but that doesn't necessarily make it the right one.
By Peggy Hollinger in Paris
When Anne Lauvergeon took over France's nuclear group Cogema in 1999, one of her first acts was to install cameras in the fuel and waste treatment chambers of La Hague, France's highly sensitive reprocessing site on the north coast.
FRANKFURT, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Germany will uphold staunch political opposition to atomic energy, unperturbed by the mood swinging back in favour of nuclear power elsewhere.
Oil at record highs, climate worries, and the need to cut dependency on energy imports is due to move the British government to back new nuclear power plants on Thursday.
But Germany, Europe's biggest and most central power market, will not follow suit.
A new generation of nuclear power stations in the UK has been given formal backing by the government.
Business Secretary John Hutton told MPs they would give a "safe and affordable" way of securing the UK's future energy supplies while fighting climate change.
A new generation of nuclear power stations in the UK has been given the formal go-ahead by the government.
Ministers have invited energy companies to submit plans to build new nuclear plants, which will replace the ageing fleet that currently provides about 18% of the UK's electricity.
FT, January 10 2008 19:59: The new year has hardly begun and already the first salvoes over the future of the world’s biggest nuclear group, Areva, have been fired.
Last week it emerged that Areva had held preliminary talks with French construction group Vinci about a partnership to build nuclear power stations in the UK and elsewhere.
Germany should introduce a tax of 2 euro cent/kWh on fuel rods for nuclear power generation to re-establish the balance between different generation sources, according to a Green party proposal published by Suddeutsche Zeitung.
Olkiluoto-3 will be completed in "summer 2011," Finnish utility Teollisuuden Voima Oy said. TVO said the Areva-Siemens consortium, which had previously targeted 2011 after a two-year delay on the original
schedule, had informed it December 28 of the summer target.
The electricity that NPP Belene will generate when finished will cost at least 4.5 euro-cents per kilowatt-hour, which is by one euro-cent more than the price initially announced by Atomstroyexport. The consumers' price of the electricity from NPP Belene is still uncalculated
The government will announce its decision on whether to build a new generation of nuclear power stations on Thursday, Downing Street said today.
The business secretary, John Hutton, will make the announcement in a statement to MPs on energy security.
A spokesman for the prime minister said: "John Hutton will make a statement to MPs and part of that will be the decision on whether or not to go ahead with the next generation of nuclear power stations."
