President Janos Ader has signed a law on the expansion of the Paks nuclear power plant, according to a statement from the president’s office on Monday.
The president said in the statement that there was nothing in the law, from the point of view of the constitution, that could be considered objectionable, or any point on which it deserved to be sent back to lawmakers for reconsideration.
The chief executive of Czech energy group CEZ says his company may be forced to pull out of building costly new nuclear reactors at Temelin power plant if the new government says it is not open to providing price guarantees on Temelin power generated by the new units.
The new Czech government’s threat to abandon a tender for the $15bn project would leave CEZ AS and the bidders to build the nuclear reactors with large losses.
A Russian-Czech group led by Rosatom has invested heavily in the tender for two new reactors at the Temelin announced in 2009, while rival bidder Westinghouse Electric LLC also said it’s incurred “very significant costs”.
Poland moves a step closer to its own nuclear energy
AFTER debating the possibility of nuclear energy for years, the Polish government has at last come up with a scheme. On January 28th the economics ministry presented a detailed 150-page plan paving the way for the construction of two nuclear-power plants. By 2016 the sites of the two plants will be picked. Two areas close to the Baltic coast, Choczewo and Zarnowiec, are on the shortlist. Three years later construction is to begin and, by 2024, the first plant should be producing power. A state-owned energy company, PGE, will manage the project, which will cost an estimated 40 billion-60 billion zloty ($13 billion-19 billion).
The UK's back-end nuclear waste management plans for new-build reactors have yet to be notified to the European Commission for State Aid clearance, the Department of Energy and Climate Change told Platts Wednesday.
A notification relating to the Hinkley Investment Contract, ancillary agreements and state credit guarantee was submitted by the UK to the EC on October 22, 2013. It is this notification that the EC has decided to put through an in-depth State Aid investigation.
Hungarian lawmakers have approved a controversial Russian-financed plan to construct two new reactors at the country's only nuclear plant.
Under the deal, Russia will lend Hungary up to 10bn euros (£8.3bn) to build the reactors in the city of Paks.
The government says the bill - which was passed by 256 to 29 votes - will reduce reliance on foreign sources.
But critics argue it will make Hungary fully dependent on Russia, which is already its main oil and gas supplier.
The European Union also expressed concern over the deal's lack of transparency and fair competition.
Plans by EDF Energy to build Britain's first nuclear reactor for a generation were in disarray last night after Brussels said that the controversial subsidy deal agreed with the Government could amount to illegal state aid.
In a withering initial assessment, the European Commission said that consumers would end up paying up to £17.6 billion of "super-normal" subsidies via their energy bills to EDF Energy, which is controlled by the French Government.
Its most damning objection was that the subsidies were entirely unnecessary, since nuclear power would become economic by the end of the next decade, according to the Government's own forecasts.
BUDAPEST, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Hungary's development minister said on Sunday the government should soon complete talks with Russia on a multi-billion dollar sovereign loan that would enable it to start work on two new nuclear reactors.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban signed an agreement earlier this month on a project to add 2.4 gigawatts of nuclear generation capacity at the Paks nuclear plant, more than doubling Hungary's current level.
EXCLUSIVE / Electricity prices in Ukraine are expected to double to help pay for a series of safety upgrades to old Soviet nuclear power stations, according to a leaked report by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
EBRD, a public sector bank investing in Eastern Europe and elsewhere on behalf of 64 countries and the European Union, last year announced a €300 million loan to the Ukrainian state nuclear power company, Energoatom. It is the largest nuclear safety loan the bank has made.
Jan 13 (Reuters) - Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet in Moscow on Tuesday, the Kremlin said on Monday, and a diplomatic source said they were likely to sign a nuclear cooperation deal.
Hungarian daily Nepszabadsag reported on Saturday that Hungary could soon sign a deal for Russia's state-owned Rosatom to build new blocks at the 2-gigawatt Paks nuclear power plant south of Budapest.
PARIS (Reuters) - Areva is in talks with the French government to release some funds set aside for dismantling its nuclear installations in France to help the company finance a new British nuclear reactor, a newspaper reported.
Britain signed a deal with France's state-owned utility EDF in October to build a 16-billion pound nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point in southwest Britain, the first new plant in Europe since the Fukushima disaster.
