Lithuania will find it difficult to ensure the security of energy supply without building a new nuclear power plant, Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger said.
Oettinger said on Wednesday (14 November) that if a nuclear power plant is not built in Lithuania, the problems with energy supply security will persist in the entire region, including the Baltic countries, Finland and the Kaliningrad region, the Baltic News Service (BNS) reported.
Two nuclear-power plants majority-owned by Vattenfall AB, a state-owned Swedish power company, were targeted by Greenpeace activists, about 70 of whom broke into restricted areas.
The activists targeted the Ringhals plant on Sweden's west coast and the Forsmark facility on the east coast. Combined they produce about 36% of energy consumed in Sweden.
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".
Green energy campaigners are attempting to block new nuclear power stations in the UK by complaining to the European Commission that government plans contravene EU competition regulations.
They say financial rules for nuclear operators include subsidies that have not been approved by the commission.
BRUSSELS, May 25 (Reuters) - European nuclear watchdogs have agreed details of safety checks on the EU's reactors to prevent crises like that in Japan, but they will not include tests for resisting terror attacks, the European Commission said.
European leaders agreed in March to subject European nuclear power plants to "stress tests", but since then experts at national nuclear authorities have been wrangling over details such as whether to test for resilience to acts of terror.
Europe is preparing new stress tests designed to put nuclear power stations through their paces. It's a response primarily to the problems at Japan's Fukushima plant. But will the tests be as rigorous as promised?
The European Commission is set to present a draft for its new nuclear stress tests next week. While the Fukushima power plant, ravaged by an earthquake and tsunami, teetered on the brink of meltdown in March, European leaders agreed to set the "highest standards" of nuclear safety, with a mandatory round of new stress tests key to achieving this goal.
A leaked European Commission draft report says Europe should solve the problem of handling nuclear waste by making industry pay to stash it deep underground, where it will be overseen by independent watchdogs.
"The current situation of spent fuel and radioactive waste management in EU member states is not satisfactory," says the draft, seen by Reuters Thursday.
The European Commission will promote underground storage as the safest option for storing nuclear waste, according to a leaked proposal which has already irked environmentalists.
The draft directive seeks to set up an EU framework for managing used fuel and radioactive waste which is generated by nuclear power plants but also medicine and industry, among others.
Chancellor Angela Merkel had hoped that with a quick resolution, she could sidestep a national debate over nuclear energy. Many, though, see her new plan as a windfall for the country's power utilities. Opposition, both within her government and elsewhere, is on the rise.
BRUSSELS, July 20 (Reuters) - Cash-strapped European Union governments will not have to provide fresh money in order to fill a 1.4 billion euro ($1.81 billion) funding gap in a project to commercialise nuclear fusion -- the process that powers the sun.
Increased complexity and rising construction costs have seen the price tag for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project rise to 16 billion euros ($20.76 billion), while the EU's share has more than doubled.
