FRANKFURT, Dec 15 (Reuters) - E.ON and Vattenfall are in talks that may give E.ON full management of two northern German nuclear power plants they jointly own and run, the two utilities said in a statement on Wednesday.
Both Kruemmel, a 1,402 megawatts (MW) capacity plant operated on a 50/50 basis, and 806 MW Brunsbuettel, where Vattenfall has two thirds and E.ON one third, have been offline since security glitches in the summer of 2007 grounded them.
Berlin - Germany's extension of the legal lifetimes of 17 nuclear power plants passed into law Wednesday, with President Christian Wulff assenting to the legislation in Berlin.
The 12-year deferment of the sunset date for nuclear power, a key policy plank of Chancellor Angela Merkel's government, still faces challenges by anti-nuclear opponents in the courts.
Russia is proposing to build a high-voltage electricity cable from Kaliningrad to Germany across the Baltic Sea to export power produced from a newly to be built nuclear power plant. The cable would be laid alongside the last part of the gas pipeline Nordstream that Gazprom is building together with western partners and that will be used to transport gas direct from Russia to Germany across the Baltic Sea. The electricity cable would similarly bypass third countries, in this case Poland. A representative from the German Ministry of Economic Affairs says he does not expect Germany to be willing to acquiesce to the plan. ‘I cannot imagine that the German public will want to import nuclear power (“Atomstrom”) from Russia’, he says.
A four-nation nuclear power plant project in Lithuania was thrown into doubt Friday, as the government said a South Korean bidder had pulled out and another was rejected.
Lithuania's deputy energy minister, Romas Svedas, told reporters that South Korea's state energy firm Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO) had withdrawn from the race to build and run the plant.
Qatar’s prime minister met French president Nicolas Sarkozy this week in an attempt to resolve the stalemate over a capital increase for Areva, the French state-owned nuclear group.
Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani was in Paris for a stopover to discuss the terms of Qatar’s proposed investment in Areva.
Austrian companies have shown interest in taking part in the project to build a second Bulgarian Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in the Danube town of Belene.
The information was reported Tuesday by Dr. Michael Angerer, Commercial Counsellor with Austrian Embassy in Bulgaria, during a conference dedicated to the competitiveness of Bulgaria's economy.
Serbia has officially stated its interest in becoming one of the investors in Bulgaria's project to build a second Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in the Danube town of Belene.
The official letter was sent to Bulgaria's Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, from his Serbian counterpart, Mirko Cvetcovic.
Controversial German writer and television presenter Charlotte Roche has offered to have sex with German president Christian Wulff if he blocks legislation to extend the operating lives of the country's nuclear power plants. In an interview with Der Spiegel magazine, the 32-year-old anti-nuclear activist said: "I am offering to sleep with him if he does not sign the legislation."
She added, "My husband agrees. Now it is up to the First Lady to give her consent."
The main electricity producer in Slovakia, Slovenske Elektrarne (SE), which is 66% owned by Italian power giant Enel and 34% owned by the state, has completed its EUR 500 million investment into upgrading two units of the V2 power plant in Jaslovske Bohunice.
The UK nuclear regulator said Wednesday it expects both the Areva EPR and the Westinghouse AP1000 reactors to have unresolved safety issues when the generic design assessment, or GDA, program completes next year. In a quarterly progress report released Wednesday, the NII said it has potential open issues in 10 out of 18 topical areas on the Areva EPR design review and in 16 out of the 18 topical areas on the Westinghouse AP1000 design.
