Nuclear power in Europe

Vincent de Rivaz, the chief executive of France’s EDF Energy, which is now in control of the UK’s nuclear energy programme, doesn’t laugh when I ask if he has succeeded where Napoleon failed.

“It’s not a war,” he says, very seriously. “This is an amicable agreement between two companies which will bring good news to everyone involved. Will it bring stability to customers for electricity bills? Yes. Will it bring new jobs? Yes. Will it improve climate change? Yes.” (more…)

Less than two months after British Energy shareholders walked away from an earlier deal, EDF has bagged the UK nuclear power generator in a £12.4bn deal.

Selling British Energy to EDF is about more than just a handover of physical assets. (more…)

Nuclear power firm British Energy looks poised to fall into foreign hands after it was reported French power giant EDF has agreed a £12.4 billion takeover of the firm.

The deal is worth 774p a share, the Wall Street Journal said, 9p higher than a rebuffed offer made in July. (more…)

DETAILS OF a serious fire hazard at the Hunterston nuclear power station in North Ayrshire have been kept secret because they could aid a terrorist attack.

The government’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has refused to release information about a “specific fire scenario” at the reactors because to do so could “threaten national security”. (more…)

Scotland’s energy minister Jim Mather insisted today that “our people don’t want new nuclear power and we don’t need it”, as he revealed new figures on renewable energy.

Speaking at the Scottish Council for Development & Industry energy conference at Murrayfield Stadium, the minister said wind farms, hydro power projects and marine renewables will mean Scotland should “comfortably” surpass its renewable energy targets set for 2011. (more…)

The credibility of the nuclear industry was shaken last night after the estimated cost of cleaning up Britain’s atomic waste was raised by a further £10bn.

The latest clean-up estimate from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) suggests the commonly accepted figure of £73bn should rise to £83bn. But the agency insisted that £10bn of income from generating and fuel reprocessing plants should also be taken into account. (more…)

PARIS (AFP) — Newly formed global energy giant GDF Suez of France is interested in nuclear power operator British Energy but only if the company is split up and sold off site by site.

“If the plan remains to sell British Energy in one go, then it will be sold without us,” said GDF Suez head Gerard Mestrallet in an interview with Les Echos daily to appear Thursday. (more…)

France’s two biggest energy groups, EDF and GDF Suez, are vying to build the country’s latest nuclear power plant, casting fresh doubt on their participation in Britain’s planned nuclear renaissance.

Last week President Nicolas Sarkozy gave the go-ahead for a second new-generation European pressurised reactor (EPR) on an existing site. It will be France’s 60th nuclear power plant. (more…)

Suez’s formal withdrawal from the bidding for British Energy further whittles down the official number of European energy groups that have expressed an interest in acquiring all or part of the nuclear power group.

In early April it was thought that British Energy was in discussions with five European energy companies about a possible bid or collaboration. The groups believed to be in the talks at the time were EDF, the French state-controlled energy group, RWE and Eon of Germany, Spain’s Iberdrola, and Centrica of the UK. (more…)

British Energy proves a slow sell

EVEN today, 13 years after it was built, Britain’s newest nuclear-power station looks futuristic, with its landmark white containment dome and the blue haze of Cerenkov radiation in the cooling pond. In contrast to the huge furnaces needed to burn coal, a reactor core at Sizewell B roughly the size of a smallish lorry produces 3% of Britain’s electricity. But its construction was so controversial—sparking one of the longest planning inquiries ever—that, after it was finished, nuclear power was abandoned for a generation. (more…)