Nuclear power in Europe

FRANKFURT, May 10 (Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right coalition may have trouble pushing through planned nuclear lifetime extensions after a German regional election on Sunday went awry for the government.

North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, left Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Free Democrat (FDP) allies short of their previous state majority, leaving the make-up of the next government unclear. (more…)

FRANKFURT, Oct 20 (Reuters) – German nuclear power plant operators EnBW and RWE confirmed they will keep two reactors running beyond 2009, when a general election might change nuclear policy.

The two companies on Monday confirmed a weekend media report which said the Neckarwestheim 1 and Biblis A installations will run at least well into 2010, although under the nuclear exit law they should have shut next year. (more…)

Cold rain beats down outside the Biblis power station (pictured above), but behind the airlock that isolates the slightly radioactive containment area, the temperature rises to uncomfortable levels. Past several other layers of steel, the nuclear reactor hums gently.

“See these beams,” says Frank Staude, an engineer for the RWE power group, sweat streaming down his cheeks. “They will protect us against the kind of earthquake that would leave no skyscraper in Frankfurt standing.” (more…)

A remote-controlled crane struck an electric power cable outside a nuclear power plant in the southern city of Biblis, leading to the shutdown of one of two reactors, the press reported Wednesday.

The operator of the Biblis nuclear power plant said the turbine linked to reactor B was automatically turned off after the crane clipped a high-voltage cable during construction work at a water treatment plant. (more…)

Berlin – Germany’s oldest nuclear power plant still in operation was to have been shut down for good in autumn next year. That date was determined not so much by the plant’s age – Biblis A went onstream in 1974 – as by a political decision taken in 2000 to phase out nuclear power completely by around 2021.

In terms of the relevant legislation passed two years later, each of Germany’s 17 nuclear plants was allocated a block of remaining operating time. (more…)

FRANKFURT (Thomson Financial) – RWE AG. plans to shut down its Biblis A reactor for maintenance during the four months to September 2009, Mannheimer Morgen reported, citing the reactor’s technical director Juergen Haag.

This would allow RWE to operate the reactor, which is Germany’s oldest, until after the German parliamentary elections in autumn that year. (more…)

German environmentalists won a battle in the fight against nuclear power, when a court ruled energy giant RWE couldn’t extend the operating life of one nuclear plant by transferring unused capacity from another.

Amid an ongoing struggle over the future of nuclear power in Germany, a German court ruled that RWE could not extend production at its Biblis A nuclear reactor longer than originally foreseen by German law.
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ESSEN, Germany (Thomson Financial) – RWE AG said it is restarting block A of its Biblis nuclear plant after being shut down for one and a half years due to technical faults. (more…)

Jan. 28 (Bloomberg) — RWE AG, Germany’s second-largest utility, said its Biblis A nuclear reactor will remain stopped longer than previously planned.

The 1,167-megawatt plant is now expected to start between Feb. 6 and Feb. 8, the Essen-based utility said today on its Web site. The facility had been scheduled to come on line between Jan. 29 and Jan. 31. (more…)

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – A court ruled on Wednesday that a dispute between the German government and a power group about whether to close a major nuclear reactor will be referred to the country’s Federal Administrative Court.

The decision prolongs a dispute between the operator, Vattenfall Europe, which last year applied to keep the 806 megawatts plant open beyond 2010, and the Environment Ministry, which threw out the application. (more…)