Nuclear power in Europe

STOCKHOLM/LONDON (Reuters) – Sweden’s Vattenfall is ready to reopen one of its two north German nuclear plants shortly and the second will reopen later this year at the earliest as the operator completes safety-related measures, Chief Executive Lars Josefsson said on Monday.

“Kruemmel is almost ready to go live but of course requires approval while the time schedule for Brunsbuettel is not as firm,” he said at the Reuters Energy Summit by video link from Stockholm. (more…)

German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety said Saturday that 122 incidents were subject to reporting at the country’s nuclear power plants last year, according to the Munich-based Focus news magazine.

Based on a seven-stage international evaluation scale (INES), 120 incidents were reported on the lowest notifiable category. (more…)

STOCKHOLM, Feb 7 (Reuters) – Utility Vattenfall is putting a string of nuclear mishaps behind it and sees a bright future for atomic power in Europe, although it cannot yet say when its hobbled German plants will be back online.

“You should be a little humble and not overconfident but we have taken a lot of measures and we are definitely on the right track to be the benchmark of our industry,” Lars Josefsson, chief executive of the Swedish state-owned firm, told Reuters. (more…)

STOCKHOLM, Feb 7 (Reuters) – Vattenfall Chief Executive Lars Josefsson said on Thursday he was not prepared to estimate when the Brunsbuettel and Kruemmel nuclear plants in Germany would come back on line.

Josefsson told a conference call on Vattenfall’s 2007 results he was “not prepared to give any estimation” on when the plants, jointly owned with E.ON, would come back on line. (more…)

FRANKFURT, Feb 4 (Reuters) – A fire started at Vattenfall Europe’s currently closed Kruemmel nuclear plant in northern German but was quickly put out by the plant’s own fire brigade on Monday, the operator and local government said.

No radioactive substances had been released and all relevant authorities had been informed, Vattenfall said in a statement. (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…)

Mon Nov 12, 2007 1:17pm GMT

STOCKHOLM, Nov 12 (Reuters) – Swedish utility group Vattenfall said on Monday it will create a new executive post to keep tabs on its nuclear power activities after criticism over operations at plants in Sweden and Germany. (more…)

The Associated Press Wednesday, October 31, 2007

STOCKHOLM, Sweden: Swedish utility Vattenfall AB has lost almost 200,000 customers in Germany because of a “crisis in confidence” after failing to properly inform the public about a fire in a nuclear power plant and the shutdown of another, company officials said Wednesday. (more…)

Incidents on 28 June at Brunsbüttel and Krümmel, both situated in the German federal state of Schleswig-Holstein, have led to dismissals and resignations of staff and board members of the reactor operating company Vattenfall Europe AG. The managers and the company have come under intense criticism from both pro- and antinuclear politicians, more for the way in which they handled the public information campaign following the incidents rather than for the actual incidents. Even German chancellor Angela Merkel said she had no compassion for Vattenfall because of their information policy. (more…)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is furious with energy company Vattenfall for having been slow to publicly admit the severity of recent mishaps at two reactors in northern Germany. Meanwhile, the company still seems to be in denial.

Sometimes it’s not what you say, but when you say it. And for Vattenfall, a leading energy company in Germany which operates the two nuclear reactors near Hamburg which were forced to shut down in recent incidents, it is becoming increasingly clear that trying to cover up mistakes is not the best way to generate positive PR. (more…)