Nuclear power in Europe

The French nuclear industry is in turmoil as uranium supplies have dried up and the treatment of spent fuel has been blocked amid an increasingly bitter row between the heads of its two main state operators.

EDF, the electricity group that runs 58 reactors in France, said that Areva, the nuclear energy group, had stopped uranium deliveries on January 4 and was refusing to take away spent fuel for reprocessing. (more…)

Britain’s main safety regulator threw the government’s energy plans into chaos tonight by damning the nuclear industry’s leading designs for new plants. The Health and Safety Executive said it could not recommend plans for new reactors because of wide-ranging concerns about their safety.

The leading French and American reactors are central to plans for a nuclear renaissance aimed at keeping the lights on and helping to cut carbon emissions. The government needs to build a number of nuclear power stations in the next 10 years to replace old atomic and coal plants. (more…)

Government officials have drawn up secret plans to tax electricity consumers to subsidise the construction of the UK’s first new nuclear reactors for more than 20 years, the Guardian has learned.

The planned levy on household bills would add £44 to an annual electricity bill of £500 and contradicts repeated promises by ministers that the nuclear industry would no longer benefit from public subsidies. There is mounting pressure on the power industry to show it can keep the lights on, with fears growing of an energy gap as ageing nuclear stations are retired and plans for new coal plants attract hostile protests. (more…)

The executives of electric utilities worldwide are dreaming of a renaissance in nuclear power. But problems with a new, state-of-the-art reactor in Finland suggest that this is unlikely to happen. The industry’s alternative strategy is to modernize older plants to drastically extend reactor lifetimes.

The managers at Finnish electric utility TVO expressed one last wish before ordering what would be the world’s largest nuclear power plant from Siemens and the French nuclear power conglomerate Areva. They wanted the reactor to be painted oxblood red and white, the traditional colors of the picturesque summer homes on Finland’s western coast. (more…)

PARIS, Sept 25 (Reuters) – EDF has turned off the 1,300-megawatt Paluel power reactor 3 after fire broke out in the machine room in the non-nuclear part of the plant, it said on Friday.

The fire was put out and there were no casualties, it said. (more…)

EDF Energy, which own the nuclear power station in Romney Marsh, Kent, said that no radiation was released and members of the public were not in danger.

The incident on June 29 is understood to have taken place in a building away from the reactor, when a piece of rubber became trapped in a fuel coupling. (more…)

OLKILUOTO, Finland — As the Obama administration tries to steer America toward cleaner sources of energy, it would do well to consider the cautionary tale of this new-generation nuclear reactor site.

The massive power plant under construction on muddy terrain on this Finnish island was supposed to be the showpiece of a nuclear renaissance. The most powerful reactor ever built, its modular design was supposed to make it faster and cheaper to build. And it was supposed to be safer, too. (more…)

PARIS (AFP) — Two senior executives at French state energy giant Electricite de France (EDF) have been charged on suspicion of spying on Greenpeace, a judicial official said Tuesday.

EDF security chiefs Pierre Francois and Pierre Durieux are charged with conspiring to hack into computer systems including at the environmental group, the official said, confirming a report on the Mediapart website. (more…)

The development of new nuclear plant could be prevented if the government allows too much windpower to be built, energy giants EDF and Eon have claimed.

EDF – the world’s largest nuclear operator with 58 plants – is calling on the government to lower its proposed renewable electricity target from 35% of supply in 2020 to just 20%. (more…)

No serious safety event occurred within Electricite de France’s, or EDF’s, reactor fleet in 2007, the Institute of Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety, or IRSN, said in a report made public December 9.

The report analyzed the operation of EDF’s 58 PWRs last year and said there was “continuation of, if not an increase in, unanticipated events and operational difficulties caused essentially by human factor, organizational aspects and certain weakness in operating discipline.” (more…)