MILAN, May 28 (Reuters) - Italian power generators and major consumers should fund a revival of nuclear energy in the country which rejected it 20 years ago, an executive from the utility A2A SpA said on Wednesday.
A simmering debate about a possible renaissance of nuclear energy in Italy -- which was banned in a 1987 referendum after the Chernobyl disaster -- heated up last week when economic development minister said construction of new nuclear plants should start within five years.
France’s nuclear safety watchdog has ordered EDF to halt work temporarily at its flagship new generation nuclear power station after finding that the French electricity giant had failed to address deficiencies in quality controls.
The Nuclear Safety Authority, charged with inspecting France’s 59 reactors, said on Tuesday that it had detected anomalies in the reinforcement of concrete for the 1,600MW EPR reactor being built at Flamanville in northern France.
BERN, Switzerland: A powerful Swiss parliamentary committee is investigating why files in a high-profile nuclear smuggling case were secretly destroyed on government orders last year, officials said Tuesday.
The parliamentary committee charged with overseeing intelligence issues said it will collect further evidence on how the files were destroyed and publish a report before the fall.
Robot submarines are to be used to sweep particles of plutonium and other radioactive materials from the seabed near one of Britain's biggest nuclear plants in one of the most delicate clean-up operations ever in this country.
Each submersible will be fitted with a Geiger counter and will crisscross the sea floor to pinpoint every deadly speck close to Dounreay on Scotland's north coast before lifting each particle and returning it to land for safe storage.
ITALY, which last week decided to embrace nuclear power two decades after a public referendum banned nuclear power and deactivated all its reactors, could be just the first of several European countries to reverse its stance on nuclear power, a leading industry group has said.
Ian Hore-Lacey, spokesman for the London-based World Nuclear Association, said: "Italy has had the most dramatic, the most public turnaround, but the sentiments against nuclear are reversing very quickly all across Europe."
Romania is eyeing construction of a new nuclear plant with capacity of between 2,000 and 2,400 megawatts, whose first unit could come on line after 2020, the head of the state nuclear operator Nuclearelectrica said on Friday.
Along with some other former communist EU members, Romania is at the forefront of a renewed push for nuclear energy as an alternative to coal and gas which emit carbon dioxide, blamed for global warming. Nuclearelectrica operates Romania’s only nuclear power station in Cernavoda, where the first of two 706MW units went on stream in 1996.
In Prague, where was the second European Nuclear Energy Forum, Lithuanian Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas participated in the meeting with President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso and the prime ministers of Slovenia, the Baltic States and the Visegrad Group Countries.
The meeting focused on the importance of nuclear energy for the European Union, as ELTA was informed by the Lithuanian government. According to Kirkilas, from the economic viewpoint, nuclear energy is among the most attractive alternatives to other energy resources, and at the same time it is an important tool in combating global warming.
MADRID, May 26 (Reuters) - Spain's 1,000-megawatt Almaraz I nuclear power station is likely to be back on line on Wednesday or Thursday after refuelling, management told Reuters on Monday.
A spokeswoman at the plant added that if reconnection began on Tuesday night or Wednesday, the plant would be back at full power by Thursday.
The prime ministers of Lithuania and Slovakia have criticised deals struck by their governments with the EU before they joined the bloc to shut down aging Soviet-era nuclear power plants. International
pressure to cut carbon emissions and rising oil prices had revealed the move to be a mistake, they said.
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Brussels has called on EU member states to end the six-year deadlock over one of Europe's touchiest topics and agree common nuclear safety rules as well as ways in which to store nuclear waste.
"It is an absolute necessity," EU energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs told EUobserver on Thursday (22 May), while blaming EU governments for a lack of political will to give Brussels a stronger say on the issue.
