PARIS, Sept 26 (Reuters) - EDF said on Friday it had restarted its nuclear reactor 4 at the Tricastin plant on Sept. 25 after a 10-week long outage for refuelling and maintenance.
The reactor 2, which stopped on Aug. 30 due to an incident, was still offline.
KIEV, September 26 (RIA Novosti) - Ukraine's government has proposed allocating 450 million hryvnias ($90 million) in next year's budget to set up a strategic nuclear fuel reserve, the country's UNIAN new agency said.
"I think we will start gradually forming a fuel reserve next year," Yuri Nedashkovsky, head of state nuclear power utility Energoatom, was quoted as saying on Thursday.
He said the allocation had been included in the draft budget for 2009.
The National Grid says fears of winter power blackouts are unfounded, and denied that surplus capacity is low.
The energy trader Inenco says the UK could face power blackouts "within weeks" if a sudden cold snap or unplanned power outage occurs.
MADRID, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Spain's nuclear power stations must invest in safety if their operating permits are to be renewed in the next three years, Industry Minister Miguel Sebastian said on Monday.
Permits for seven of Spain's eight ageing nuclear plants expire between 2009-11, or within the mandate of the recently re-elected Socialist government.
FRANKFURT, Sept 29 (Reuters) - The southern German Gundremmingen C nuclear reactor was shut on Sept. 28 as planned, operator RWE's transparency website showed early on Monday, confirming earlier plans.
The 1,344 MW unit is due to be reconnected between Nov. 5 and 7, it also showed.
Turkey suffered a setback in its efforts to reduce a costly dependence on energy imports on Wednesday, receiving just one bid in a tender to build the country’s first nuclear power plant.
The 4,000-megawatt plant near Mersin on the Mediterranean coast is intended to be the first of three, aimed at averting power shortages and lessening reliance on natural gas imports from Russia and Iran.
SOFIA, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Bulgaria's nuclear regulator on Friday rejected accusations that nuclear power plant Kozloduy used dangerous recycled fuel, firing back against sustained criticism of the plant's safety.
In July, a nuclear scientist and long-term Kozloduy employee, Georgi Kotev, accused the plant in his web blog and several media interviews of using second-hand fuel.
Russia and Belarus will both have nuclear power plants close to Lithuania by the time Ignalina nuclear power plant has a replacement, The Baltic Times quotes the president of the Lithuanian Industrialists’ Confederation and the majority owner of Achema Group, Bronislavas Lubys.
Lubys said that he is certain that before Lithuania builds its planned new nuclear power plant, Russia and Belarus will construct two new atomic power stations in the region.
Kiev, 26 September: Power generating unit No 2 at the Khmelnytskyy nuclear power plant was reconnected to the power grid at 2051 local time [1751 gmt] on 25 September after emergency repairs, the plant's press service told UNIAN.
The unit is working at 780 MW capacity today.
Less than two months after British Energy shareholders walked away from an earlier deal, EDF has bagged the UK nuclear power generator in a £12.4bn deal.
Selling British Energy to EDF is about more than just a handover of physical assets.
