It is one thing for a green pressure group to claim nuclear power is too expensive, but quite another when the charge comes from the head of an atomic industry pioneer such as General Electric.
GE built some of the world's first commercial atomic reactors in the 1950s and has remained an industry leader since its nuclear joint venture with Japan's Hitachi in 2007.
WARSAW, July 31 (Reuters) - Poland estimates that 60-70 percent of the work involved in building its first nuclear power station will be awarded to domestic suppliers, an Economy Ministry official said in a report on Tuesday.
The European Union member is planning to launch operations of a three-gigawatt nuclear plant by 2023 and hopes to double the capacity by 2030 in a bid to reduce its reliance on highly polluting coal and provide energy for its expanding economy.
AMSTERDAM -(Dow Jones)- Dutch utility Delta NV said Monday it has shelved its plan to build a second nuclear plant in the Netherlands, in the latest example of waning appetite for atomic power in Europe.
Delta NV, which aimed to build the plant together with Germany's RWE AG, said the current market climate makes it no longer viable to move ahead with the project and that it will shelve its plans for two to three years.
The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority (SSM) has recommended a tripling of the fee paid by the country's nuclear power industry towards paying for management of the country's nuclear waste.
SSM has been tasked with assessing what level of fee Sweden's nuclear generators should be required to pay into the country's Nuclear Waste Fund for the next three years. Basing its assessment on information gathered from the relevant organisations - including cost estimates from the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Co (SKB) - SSM has recommended to the government that the fee should be set at 3 öre per kWh of nuclear electricity produced. The current level is 1 öre per kWh. (1 öre is worth approximately $0.001.)
HELSINKI/PARIS, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Finnish utility firm Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) blamed supplier Areva for further delays to the construction of its Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power plant which may further push back operations to 2014.
The 1,600 megawatt plant Olkiluoto 3, Finland's fifth nuclear reactor, was originally scheduled to start operations in 2009 but delays and soaring costs meant TVO revised its start date to 2013.
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's nuclear strategy is "uninvestable" for private clients, who are only likely to put money into new plants if the government shoulders more of the risks involved, Citigroup's head of European utilities research said on Wednesday.
Nuclear developers plan to build around 16 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity in the UK by 2025 to help meet the UK's tough climate targets, but the investment environment is "dire," Peter Atherton told journalists at a briefing in London.
PARIS/FRANKFURT, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Power groups GDF Suez, Iberdrola and RWE said on Thursday they were pulling out of a multi-billion dollar nuclear project in Romania, confirming an earlier report by Reuters.
"Economic and market-related uncertainties surrounding this project, related for the most part to the present financial crisis, are not reconcilable now with the capital requirements of a new nuclear power project," the groups said in a joint statement.
FRANKFURT, Oct. 4 (Reuters) - German utilities' gamble of sacrificing near-term profits in exchange for extending the lifespans of their 17 nuclear plants is pressuring shares and may misfire if the political situation changes.
Last month, the government agreed with the four operators of Germany's nuclear power plants to extend the plants' life by 12 years on average in exchange for at least 31 billions euros ($42.45 billion) of payments.
Chinese development Bank interested to finance Serbian participation in building NPP in Belene and in some other energy projects, announced today representatives of that Bank.
“We spoke about that project in Bulgaria, we are interested and there is obvious advance in that direction”, vice governor of CDBank Gao Jian told to media after talks with Serbian minister for Energy and Mining Mr Petar Skundric.
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.
