PRAGUE, Sept 25 (Reuters) - CEZ is taking a wait-and-see approach to new investment as low power prices pressure energy companies and will scale back renewable plans due to an uncertain regulatory landscape, the Czech utility's chief strategy officer said.
Pavel Cyrani, also a CEZ board member, told the Reuters Eastern Europe Investment summit on Wednesday that a cautious approach was necessary to allow central Europe's biggest utility to remain healthy in current tough market conditions.
PARIS--France's oldest nuclear plant Fessenheim, in the east of the country bordering Germany, won't be dismantled until 2018 at the earliest due to the plant's lengthy closing procedures, the French government mediator for the shut down of Fessenheim Francis Rol-Tanguy said in an interview with French daily Les Dernieres Nouvelles d'Alsace.
The closing of Fessenheim is seen as a litmus test for French President Francois Hollande's ability to reform the country's strategy on energy which heavily relies on its nuclear capacities. By law only the operator of a power plant or France's nuclear regulator can decide to shut down a reactor.
Electricite de France SA’s deal with the U.K. to build the nation’s first new nuclear plant in two decades will be probed by the European Union once an agreement is struck and regulators are informed, the EU’s antitrust chief said.
“The U.K. government has announced to us that they will notify in the coming months a program linked with investments in nuclear energy, in new plants,” Joaquin Almunia, the EU’s competition commissioner, said in the margins of a conference in Florence, Italy. “Once this notification will take place we will need to assess if this scheme, this program complies or not” with the EU’s rules.
ED DAVEY, the energy secretary, will travel to Beijing this month to lay the groundwork for a sweeping new partnership that could lead to Chinese-designed nuclear reactors being built in Britain.
The trip is the latest sign of the government's desperation to find backers for its troubled £200bn low-carbon overhaul of the energy industry. Last week Michael Fallon, Davey's No2, signed a memorandum of understanding to co-operate on civil power with Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear monopoly.
The Finnish power group Fennovoima has selected the Russian state nuclear company Rosatom to build its nuclear reactor in Pyhäjoki, northern Finland.
Fennovoima said on Tuesday that it will propose to its shareholders that a deal with Rosatom be signed by the end of this year, with the Russian firm taking a 34 percent stake in the project.
The General Directorate of Security will reportedly investigate 4,000 Turkish citizens, including interns, while MİT will look into 8,000 Russians to be hired to work at the plant
Slovakia’s nuclear watchdog violated the law when it issued a building permit for Enel SpA’s 3.7 billion-euro ($5 billion) nuclear project because Greenpeace wasn’t allowed to comment, the Supreme Court ruled.
The Italian utility’s local unit, Slovenske Elektrarne AS, in 2009 began building two new reactors at the Mochovce nuclear power plant after receiving a permit by the Office for Nuclear Supervision. The high court asked the regulator to repeat the proceeding and include Greenpeace, according to the June 27 ruling posted on the office’s website today.
BRUSSELS/LONDON (Reuters) – European Union rules to be published over the coming weeks could make it easier to justify using taxpayers’ money to fund new nuclear power, which would pitch major EU powers against each other.
The European Commission, the EU executive, says its mind is still open on the topic, but it is under pressure to set a legal framework for state aid to nuclear projects after several member states, including Britain, sought its guidance.
This month, Austria went ahead with its plans to ban imports of nuclear power to the country. Electricity is to be labeled to ensure that no power from nuclear reactors is purchased from abroad. The EU is not pleased about the move, which has gone practically unnoticed in reports in English.
In a press release (in German) from July 4, the Austrian Parliament announced the adoption of a ban on nuclear power imports to the country. The policy decision was announced more than a year ago but has only now been made law.
(Reuters) - Germany on Friday rebuffed draft plans by the European Commission to allow European Union member states to directly subsidise nuclear power.
Several European governments, such as Britain and France, plan to build new nuclear power stations, but many companies are shying away from investing in the expensive technology without the safeguard of government support.
