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.
PARIS—France's nuclear-safety watchdog ordered immediate upgrades to nuclear reactors to guard against natural disasters, which Électricité de France SA said could require €10 billion, or roughly $13 billion, in additional costs.
In a review following last year's Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan, the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire concluded that no plants needed to be shut down immediately but that steps should be taken as "soon as possible" to improve safety at France's 58 reactors.
PARIS — One person was killed and four were injured Monday afternoon in an explosion at a nuclear waste treatment site in southern France, according to the French Nuclear Safety Authority.
The authority and local police officials said there had been no radiation leak. About five hours after the explosion, the authority announced that the episode was over. The site, about 20 miles from Avignon, has no nuclear reactors, the authority said. A spokesman for the French power utility Électricité de France, which owns the site, said, “It is an industrial accident, not a nuclear one.”
The Mox nuclear fuel plant at Sellafield was closed on Wednesday, with the loss of around 600 jobs.
The closure is a consequence of the Fukushima incident in Japan in March, which has closed down much of the nuclear industry there and led to a rethink of nuclear power around the world. But the government said the move had "no implications" for the UK's plans for new nuclear reactors.
PARIS, July 20 (Reuters) - EDF has delayed the completion of its first French next-generation EPR nuclear reactor by another two years to 2016, saying it expects the project's costs to rise to 6 billion euros ($8.52 billion).
In July 2010, the state-controlled utility had delayed the commercial start of the 1,600 megawatt nuclear reactor by two years to 2014. It had also previously raised its cost estimate for the project in northern France by almost 2 billion euros to 5 billion euros.
PARIS, July 8 (Reuters) - France raised the possibility for the first time of pulling out of nuclear power although its energy minister stressed on Friday that this was just one of many scenarios, not the one favoured by the government.
Energy Minister Eric Besson announced on radio Europe 1 the launch of a study on Friday on the country's energy mix by 2050, with options including a complete exit from nuclear production, a cut in the share of nuclear to 50 percent and a progressive reduction of total electricity production in France.
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.
British government officials approached nuclear companies to draw up a co-ordinated public relations strategy to play down the Fukushima nuclear accident just two days after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and before the extent of the radiation leak was known.
Planned stress tests on European nuclear plants should focus on threats from natural disasters and exclude potential man-made catastrophes such as a terrorist attack, European atomic industry group Foratom said.
European nuclear officials are to decide today on parameters for the safety checks on atomic power plants in response to the Japanese nuclear crisis caused by a March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The meeting of the European Commission, the EU regulator, and 27 national nuclear safety authorities comes a day after Spain’s biggest earthquake in 57 years killed eight people.
France's GDF Suez has paid the Belgian government a 2010 nuclear tax payment of Eur212 million ($276 million), a company spokeswoman said Thursday.
Through its subsidiary Electrabel, GDF Suez operates almost all of Belgium's 5.9 GW of nuclear capacity.
