(BRUSSELS) - France, Britain, Poland and the Czech Republic rejected a report Friday that they want nuclear energy to receive subsidies similar to the ones enjoyed by renewable energies.
The German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported earlier that those four countries sent letters outlining their request to Brussels ahead of a meeting by European Union energy ministers next week.
The German government ill consider setting up a publicly administered fund to manage the disposal of nuclear waste from its power plants, environment minister Norbert Röttgen said following the publication of a Greenpeace report on Wednesday.
Greenpeace has called for a public fund because it fears German nuclear operators Eon, RWE, EnBW and Vattenfall may go bankrupt or try to wriggle out of their obligations after 2022, when the last of Germany’s reactors are due to close.
China appears to be edging ahead in the international contest to build a new nuclear power station on Turkey’s Black Sea coast – a sign of how the ambitions of its nuclear companies are poised to reshape the global nuclear industry.
Beijing is not looking for government guarantees for the project and can supply its own financing, according to an Ankara official, pointing to China’s advantage in the race to build the reactor for Turkey.
TEMELIN, Czech Republic, March 30 (Reuters) - The Czech government sees building new nuclear power plants as a strategic priority and is considering minimum electricity price guarantees to ensure new reactors are built, the country's industry minister said on Friday.
In contrast to countries such as neighbouring Germany that are pulling out of nuclear energy in light of the disaster at Japan's Fukushima a year ago, the Czech Republic aims to enlarge the existing Temelin site in the south of the country.
(Reuters) - German utilities E.ON and RWE have shelved their plans to build new nuclear plants in Britain, sources told Reuters on Thursday.
"The companies want to withdraw from that," said a source close to the companies and informed about the developments. Both companies and their joint venture Horizon declined to comment.
SOFIA, March 28 (Reuters) - Bulgaria has abandoned plans to build the 2,000 megawatt Belene nuclear power plant on the Danube River and will construct a new gas power plant instead, Prime Minister Boiko Borisov said on Wednesday.
The Belene project has failed to attract serious foreign investors in the past three years after Germany's RWE pulled out in 2009 due to funding concerns.
Government plans for nuclear power risk handing control of the UK's climate and energy policies to France, according to four senior environmentalists.
Energy giant EDF and reactor builder Areva, big players in the UK's plans, are largely French government-owned.
Jonathan Porritt, Tom Burke, Charles Secrett and Tony Juniper say the firms are landing UK citizens with all the financial risks of nuclear new build.
They have told Prime Minister David Cameron he is being badly advised.
At a time when Germany's solar industry is suffering from weakened political support, the Technical Inspection Association, TÜV, has uncovered rusted radioactive waste barrels in the already inoperative Brunsbüttel nuclear plant in northern Germany.
The nuclear power plant, which was shut down last year has an underground storage of approximately 500 barrels of low and intermediate levels of radioactive waste from the reactors. In order to move the waste to end-disposal point, Schacht Konrad repository in Lower Saxony, the material has to be transferred to cast iron containers. Amidst this process, TÜV North made the discovery of rusted barrels.
The controversial Mühleberg nuclear power plant will be forced to shut down in the first half of next year unless it can present an acceptable maintenance plan.
The Federal Administrative Court yesterday ruled in favor of residents around the plant, who challenged an unlimited permit granted to Mühleberg by federal environment officials in 2009.
The justification by federal officials was the fact the plant would be under constant observation of the Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate.
BRUSSELS, March 6 (Reuters) - European Union safety tests on nuclear plants should be completed by around the middle of the year as time is needed to ensure they are thorough enough, EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said.
In comments ahead of the anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster on March 11, Oettinger said stress tests would be completed "not later than summer".
