Two of Belgium's nuclear reactions have been standing idle since the summer, but in a report for the government and the Belgian nuclear watchdog electricity generator Electrabel says that both Doel 3 in Flanders and Tihange 2 in Wallonia can be taken back into service forthwith.
The reactors were shut down after thousands of tiny tears were discovered in a valve linked to the reactor vessel.
Chief Executive Luc Oursel said the reactor in Olkiluoto will ultimately cost about 8 billion euros, same as a similar reactor it is building in Flamanville, in northern France. That's well over the last cost estimate of around EUR6.4 billion.
"Our estimation is that the whole project (in Finland) will have a cost in constant euros close to Flamanville," Mr. Oursel said during a press conference.
The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority (Strålsäkerhetsmyndigheten) has asked nuclear waste contractors at the Oskarshamn nuclear plant to review their security requirements after cracks were found in the pools where nuclear waste is temporarily stored on site.
Cement walls are cracked in two of ten waste pools at the Clab storage facility, which is run by the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (Svensk Kärnbränslehantering, SKB).
Reactor 3 of the Rivne Nuclear Power Plant automatically shut down due to the fall of the water level in the steam generators and the shutdown of the main circulation pumps.
The shutdown occurred at 7:54 a.m., the press service for the state enterprise National Nuclear Generating Company Energoatom has reported.
The political picture that emerges as Bulgaria’s parties line up their positions regarding the January 27 2013 referendum on the future of nuclear energy in the country is rather perplexing.
The referendum is the outcome of an initiative by the opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) to go to the country on the future of the Belene nuclear power station, an issue on which ruling centre-right party GERB has flip-flopped spectacularly. As a result of a series of political complexities, any reference to Belene has been removed from the question.
There are now, in turn, a number of complexities to consider in looking at political parties’ positions in the referendum.
(Reuters) - The new Dutch government picked ABN Amro to advise on the future of its 33 percent stake in UK-based uranium enrichment company Urenco, three people familiar with the situation told Reuters on Friday.
The previous government had hired Credit Suisse to examine its strategy regarding Urenco's ownership, but this mandate was not renewed after a government reshuffle in September and staff changes at the Swiss bank, one source said.
STOCKHOLM--The Oskarshamn 2 nuclear reactor in southern Sweden will be taken offline Thursday after the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority ordered an immediate shut-down due to safety concerns.
The authority said the reactor's operator, OKG, which is owned by German utility E.ON AG and Finnish Fortum Oyj, hasn't been able to show that important safety functions comply with the required standards.
The authority's concerns relate mainly to diesel generators which are part of the plant's backup power system.
PARIS (Reuters) - French utility EDF has raised the cost of the construction of its next-generation nuclear reactor by more than 2 billion euros on Monday, the latest in a series of overruns for the first EPR reactor built in France.
Stricter regulation in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster contributed to bringing the total cost of the 1,600-MW Flamanville European pressurized reactor to 8.5 billion euros ($11.11 billion), the group said.
British Gas owner Centrica is expected to write off £200m when it pulls out of the country's nuclear new build programme in the new year.
Centrica has the option of taking a 20 per cent stake in building nuclear power stations at Hinkley Point in Somerset and Sizewell in Suffolk alongside French group EDF.
The Sellafield nuclear site on the edge of the Irish Sea in Cumbria poses no health risk to Ireland, according to a report commissioned by the Government. Even the worst-case incident such as a massive explosion would not produce “observable health effects in Ireland”, the report states.
Put together over several years by eight mostly US experts, the report was released yesterday by Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan.
