Nuclear power in Europe

Top-secret shipments of weapons-ready plutonium through British waters have been stopped, after their exposure by The Independent on Sunday. The Department for Transport (DfT) said last week that it had taken “regulatory action” to prohibit the shipments from Sellafield to Normandy on an unarmed old roll-on, roll-off ferry, with few safety or security features. The prohibition, the first of its kind, was imposed after complaints by the French nuclear safety authorities.

The shipments – denounced by nuclear weapons experts as “madness” and “totally irresponsible” – were carrying hundreds of kilograms of plutonium-dioxide powder, described as the ideal material for terrorists seeking to create a nuclear explosion or make a dirty bomb. Only 10kg of the plutonium, experts claim, would be needed to make a terrorist atomic weapon. (more…)

BERLIN, July 8 (IPS) - Confirmation that radioactive brine has been leaking for two decades from a German underground deposit for nuclear waste is yet another blow to the idea that nuclear power can safely increase electricity generation and simultaneously reduce emissions.

Radioactive leaks from the nuclear waste deposit Asse II near Braunschweig in Lower Saxony, some 225 km southwest of Berlin, were first discovered in 1988. The state-owned Helmholtz Institute for
Scientific Research, which operates the centre, officially admitted the leaks only Jun. 16, under pressure from the German press. (more…)

20 December 2007

On 17 December the first transport to France of irradiated fuel still present in Italy was completed. The first two special containers, with 34 of the 1243 fuel rods that will be reprocessed at La Hague, left the shut down Caorso nuclear power plant. (more…)

ROME, Dec 16 2007 A first shipment of uranium bars left a disused nuclear plant in northern Italy on Sunday bound for France, where they will be reprocessed in Le Hague, Normandy, the ANSA news agency reported.

The 34 uranium bars — the first 7.5 tonnes of 235 tonnes of waste to be sent to France for disposal — were first loaded in two casks onto a truck under heavy guard, then placed on a special train for the journey across the Alps. (more…)

By Philip Bethge (Der Spiegel)

Is nuclear power on the verge of a renaissance? Its supporters argue that atomic energy is the only way to satisfy humanity’s hunger for more energy without aggravating the effects of global warming. Critics, however, regard the nuclear hype as over-simplistic optimism fueled by an industry in distress. (more…)