Nuclear power in Europe

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Germany’s nuclear power industry is no closer to knowing how long its plants may operate than five months ago when Chancellor Angela Merkel’s new government assumed power and promised to extend their lives.

Rifts inside her center-right cabinet over the merit of rivalling renewables energies and a local election potentially threatening her party’s leadership of a key state have delayed steps to free the 17 reactors from closure in the coming decade. (more…)

German utility RWE has indicated its interest in building a nuclear power plant in the Netherlands should a new government revoke the ban on such projects, RWE CEO Juergen Grossmann said at the company’s annual earnings press conference Thursday in Essen.

“We are interested and we are competent,” Grossmann said, when asked about the issue by a Dutch journalist. (more…)

One day after German utility RWE said that it was pulling out of the proposed Bulgarian nuclear power plant at Belene, Russia’s state-owned nuclear corporation Rosatom said that it was still interested in taking a stake in the project, Russian business daily Vedomosti said on October 29.

Rosatom’s interest in the plant, announced earlier by chief executive Sergey Kirienko, remained unchanged by RWE’s announcement, Vedomosti quoted a company spokesperson as saying. The spokesperson did not provide further details, the newspaper said. (more…)

FRANKFURT (Dow Jones) – German utility RWE AG Wednesday said it has terminated a joint venture agreement with Bulgaria’s state-owned National Electricity Co., or NEK, due to problems with the financing of a nuclear power plant that was planned to be built near the town of Belene.

“We have terminated the joint venture agreement with NEK today because of problems financing the project,” said Stephanie Schunck, spokeswoman for RWE’s power generation unit RWE Power. (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…)

BERLIN, Sept 3 (Reuters) – Farm tractors are rumbling across Germany to a mass anti-nuclear rally in Berlin at the weekend which promises to thrust the divisive issue into the federal election campaign weeks before polling day.

The future of Germany’s 17 nuclear power plants, due to be shut down by the early 2020s, is one of the major issues that divides Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives from the Social Democrats (SPD) of her challenger, Frank-Walter Steinmeier. (more…)

LONDON (Reuters) – German RWE, Europe’s fifth-largest utility, will fight to take over Essent’s stake in the Netherland’s only nuclear power plant, disputing a claim by peer Delta that it should sell it on.

RWE does not have to comply with a demand by Dutch state-owned utility Delta to sell on the 50 percent stake of the Borssele nuclear power plant it is buying as part of its 8.2 billion euro ($11.6 billion) takeover of Essent, RWE finance director Rolf Pohlig said in an interview. (more…)

PARIS, Feb 18 (Reuters) – French utility GDF Suez has decided to pull out of Bulgaria’s planned atomic power plant of Belene to focus on its other nuclear projects, a company spokesman said on Wednesday. GDF Suez’s Belgian subsidiary Electrabel had been in talks to take part in German utility RWE’s 49-percent stake in Bulgaria’s 4 billion euro plant.

The Balkan country is building the 2,000 megawatt plant to help it regain its position as a major exporter in Southeast Europe and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (more…)

Essen/ Sofia. The German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel turns its attention to the scandal in Germany surrounding the participation of RWE in the construction of NPP Belene.

Jurgen Grosmann, the President and CEO of RWE, has received an unusual letter of protest from Bulgarian MPs, which showed the negative effect from the construction of the nuclear power plant on the tourism and agriculture in the region. (more…)

Balkan states are gambling on the nuclear option as the best way to reduce the energy shortage but whether the risks pay off remains to be seen.

The three guards stand at the gate in the 40°C afternoon heat, ignoring the bustle around them. Grim-looking barbed wire coils round the top of the tall fence, as if designed to stop convicts escaping from prison. (more…)