VILNIUS — Lithuania Thursday shut down its Soviet-era nuclear plant under an EU deal in a move set to drive up electricity prices amid an economic crisis and leave it counting on ex-master Moscow for power.
“At 11:00 pm (2100 GMT) everything went offline. It all went according to plan,” Viktor Sevaldin, director of the 26-year-old plant, told AFP by telephone. (more…)
Andres Mäe, researcher of the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute, Estonia, answered questions about prospects of energy security and nuclear industry of the Baltic region. (more…)
The consortium of the Energiewerke Nord GmbH (EWN), Sintagma UAB and Ernst & Young Baltic UAB successfully completed in September 2008 the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (INPP) decommissioning management system and database (DMSD) project.
The joint team with subcontractors IBM and CORE2 provided all services according to the project schedule of 14 months. Beside the delivery of a comprehensive set of different IT equipment, an enlarged training of nominated INPP staff was performed. The project was financed by the International Ignalina Decommissioning Support Fund managed by the Central Project Management Agency with the overall value of 3.5 million EUR. (more…)
Aleksandras Abisala, chief negotiator over the extension of the Ignalina nuclear power plant, who used to speak about the considerable growth of the possibility to reach an agreement on the extension of the operation of the Ignalina nuclear power plant, now claims that Lithuania has lost this fight.
After the last week”s European Council in Brussels, when the hopes concerning the extension of the operation of the Ignalina nuclear power plant diminished, Abisala admits that Lithuania has lost the fight, lrt.lt writes. (more…)
WARSAW – Poland hopes to reduce its heavy reliance on coal, which produces harmful greenhouse gases, by building a few nuclear power plants by 2030, Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Waldemar Pawlak said on Thursday.
Pawlak’s ministry is currently working on a new energy strategy designed to meet the Polish economy’s booming demand for electricity and to modernize its communist-era power plants. (more…)
Vilnius – A referendum held in Lithuania to decide the future of the Baltic nation’s only nuclear power plant has failed to attract the necessary number of voters to be judged valid, official sources said on Monday. Lithuania agreed to close its Ignalina nuclear power plant by 2009 as part of its deal to join the European Union in 2004. A planned replacement, to be built jointly with Estonia, Latvia and Poland, is unlikely to be ready before 2015. (more…)
VILNIUS, Oct 9 (Reuters) – Lithuania may have to defy the European Union and keep its Ignalina nuclear power plant open beyond 2009 if the EU cannot help it assure energy supplies, the prime minister and economy minister said on Thursday.
Lithuania agreed under its EU entry treaty to close Ignalina, which has the same kind of reactors as at Chernobyl in Ukraine, where the world’s worst nuclear disaster happened in 1986. (more…)
VILNIUS, Sept 18 (Reuters) – The company leading work on Lithuania’s new $10 billion nuclear power station said on Thursday it would target capacity of 2,200 megawatts, lower than originally forecast.
A draft environmental impact study said the plant could be built to generate up to 3,200-3,400 MW, accommodating the demands of project partners Poland, Latvia and Estonia, all keen to lessen their dependence on Russian energy supplies. (more…)
BRUSSELS, Sept 17 (Reuters) – Lithuania’s hopes of being allowed to extend the life of its Ignalina nuclear power plant were dashed on Wednesday by the European Commission.
In its treaty on joining the European Union in 2004, Lithuania promised to shut by the end of 2009 the second reactor at the plant, which is similar to Ukraine’s Chernobyl facility where the world’s worst nuclear disaster struck in 1986. (more…)
TALLINN – Estonian Parliamentary Speaker Ene Ergma has urged the legislature to consider the construction of a nuclear power plant in the country.
At the first meeting of the autumn session, the speaker said that the country needed a new power source in response to Russia’s use of energy supplies as a political tool. (more…)
