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.
The government's energy policy took another blow on Friday as major energy provider RWE reviewed whether to scale down or abandon its UK nuclear programme.
The German-owned utility, which owns the npower supply business, has started an internal probe of its plans to construct two possible atomic power stations at Wylfa in Wales and Oldbury in Gloucestershire.
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.
Britain’s “big six” energy companies will this week warn Chris Huhne, secretary of state for energy, that the government’s proposed “floor price” for carbon emission permits is not enough of an incentive for them to invest in new nuclear power stations.
Executives from the companies, including Centrica, EDF Energy and Scottish Power, now owned by Iberdrola, are due to make their views clear at a dinner with Mr Huhne on Wednesday.
Czech power firm ČEZ will quit a joint venture to build two units at Romania's sole nuclear power plant by December and seek other low-risk projects in the region, a company official was quoted as saying on Tuesday.
Romania, whose state-owned nuclear power firm already has two 706 megawatt reactors at its plant in Cernavodă, accounting for roughly 18 percent of the country's power, had planned plans to build two more in partnership with six foreign firms.
MADRID, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Spain's oldest nuclear power station filed an appeal on Monday against a government decision to close the 500-megawatt plant in 2013, operators Nuclenor said on their website.
"Nuclenor considers that there are solid reasons to support the continued operation of the Santa Maria de Garona plant until 2019," a statement on the Nuclenor site said.
SOFIA, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Romania is due to sign a deal with selected foreign bidders to build two more reactors at its nuclear power plant in Cernavoda on Nov. 20, one of the investors, GDF Suez, said on Tuesday. Earlier this year, the Balkan country decided to retain a 51 percent stake in the planned reactors and leave the remaining 49 percent for the six bidders it chose last year as partners.
The partners are Belgian Electrabel, owned by French power giant GDF Suez, German power giant RWE, Czech utility CEZ, Italy's Enel, Spain's Iberdrola and a Romanian unit of steel giant ArcelorMittal.
ISTANBUL, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Turkey will make changes to a nuclear energy tender law nearly two months after it received just one bid in a tender to build the country's first nuclear power plant, an Energy Ministry source told Reuters on Tuesday.
A consortium comprised of Russian Atomstroyexport and Inter Rao along with Turkey's Park Teknik Group was the sole bidder in a tender to build and operate Turkey's first nuclear power plant in Mersin on the Mediterranean coast.
MADRID, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Spain's 1,000-megawatt Vandellos II nuclear power station was reconnected to the national grid on Thursday afternoon, the plant's operators said in a statement.
The plant near to the northeastern port of Tarragona had been disconnected since early on Wednesday after a control rod had fallen into the reactor core on Saturday.
MADRID, Nov 8 (Reuters) - Output at Spain's 1,000-megawatt Vandellos II nuclear plant was cut to 49 percent from full power at 1425 GMT after a power surge caused overheating, a spokesman for the plant said on Saturday.
Operators reduced output after the surge sent temperatures 20 percent above the maximum allowed for the installation.
