Companies

GDF Suez's nuclear reservations hit government energy policy

Monday, April 16, 2012

The government's energy policy has suffered a fresh blow when GDF Suez, the French firm behind plans to build a new nuclear plant in Cumbria, said it needed more financial incentives if it was to proceed.

Gérard Mestrallet, chairman and chief executive of GDF, said he wanted talks with the government about a fixed or minimum price for producing nuclear energy: "We are, with our partners, going to take a decision in 2015 [on building a new plant at Sellafield]. Today it is very difficult to invest in a nuclear power plant without clear visibility."

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Germany may set up nuclear waste fund

Friday, April 13, 2012

The German government ill consider setting up a publicly administered fund to manage the disposal of nuclear waste from its power plants, environment minister Norbert Röttgen said following the publication of a Greenpeace report on Wednesday.

Greenpeace has called for a public fund because it fears German nuclear operators Eon, RWE, EnBW and Vattenfall may go bankrupt or try to wriggle out of their obligations after 2022, when the last of Germany’s reactors are due to close.

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China edges ahead in Turkey nuclear race

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

China appears to be edging ahead in the international contest to build a new nuclear power station on Turkey’s Black Sea coast – a sign of how the ambitions of its nuclear companies are poised to reshape the global nuclear industry.

Beijing is not looking for government guarantees for the project and can supply its own financing, according to an Ankara official, pointing to China’s advantage in the race to build the reactor for Turkey.

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Czech govt mulls price floors to lure new nuclear

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

TEMELIN, Czech Republic, March 30 (Reuters) - The Czech government sees building new nuclear power plants as a strategic priority and is considering minimum electricity price guarantees to ensure new reactors are built, the country's industry minister said on Friday.

In contrast to countries such as neighbouring Germany that are pulling out of nuclear energy in light of the disaster at Japan's Fukushima a year ago, the Czech Republic aims to enlarge the existing Temelin site in the south of the country.

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E.ON, RWE drop UK nuclear plans - sources

Thursday, March 29, 2012

(Reuters) - German utilities E.ON and RWE have shelved their plans to build new nuclear plants in Britain, sources told Reuters on Thursday.

"The companies want to withdraw from that," said a source close to the companies and informed about the developments. Both companies and their joint venture Horizon declined to comment.

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Bulgaria abandons Belene nuclear plant plans

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

SOFIA, March 28 (Reuters) - Bulgaria has abandoned plans to build the 2,000 megawatt Belene nuclear power plant on the Danube River and will construct a new gas power plant instead, Prime Minister Boiko Borisov said on Wednesday.

The Belene project has failed to attract serious foreign investors in the past three years after Germany's RWE pulled out in 2009 due to funding concerns.

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UK nuclear plans 'put energy in French hands'

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Government plans for nuclear power risk handing control of the UK's climate and energy policies to France, according to four senior environmentalists.

Energy giant EDF and reactor builder Areva, big players in the UK's plans, are largely French government-owned.

Jonathan Porritt, Tom Burke, Charles Secrett and Tony Juniper say the firms are landing UK citizens with all the financial risks of nuclear new build.

They have told Prime Minister David Cameron he is being badly advised.

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Polish sea resort poll rejects nuclear plant

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

MIELNO, Poland, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Residents of popular Baltic Sea resort Mielno, one of three sites shortlisted to host Poland's first nuclear plant early in the next decade, on Sunday voted overwhelmingly against the plan.

Some 94 percent of the 2,389 people who took part in the referendum opposed the plant, and only 5 percent supported it, Mielno Mayor Olga Roszak-Pezala told Reuters late on Sunday. Turnout was 57 percent.

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Nuclear outage lifts French weekend price

Saturday, February 11, 2012

PARIS, Feb 10 (Reuters) - French weekend prices jumped early on Friday as a second unplanned nuclear outage within 12 hours caused panic in the market about a supply shortage, but prices for next week were steady as warmer weather was expected to ease demand pressure.

French baseload power for Saturday delivery traded nearly twice as high as in the neighbouring German market at 100.00 euros, after EDF's 1,300 Cattenom 2 nuclear reactor went offline unexpectedly overnight, tightening supply margins already under strain from high winter demand.

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Privatisation of Russian state nuclear giant

Friday, February 3, 2012

Having spent five years combining its nuclear power, engineering and research enterprises into the single entity of Rosatom, the Russian government now sees privatisation of the firm as part of a plan for industrial modernisation.

Rosatom is just one of several vertically integrated state holding companies Russia established to "discourage the decline of the more intellectual sectors of national industry" in the post-Soviet era, wrote Vladimir Putin in the Vedomosti newspaper on 30 January.

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