Nuclear power in Europe

PARIS, July 4 (Reuters) - French alternative power supplier Poweo on Friday said it was interested in taking part in the construction of new-generation European Pressurised nuclear Reactors (EPR) in France.

“Poweo has long expressed its interest in co-investing in an EPR, and today confirms its interest in being associated either to the Flamanville site under construction, or to the new project along with other energy players involved,” the company said in a statement. (more…)

Sealing radioactive waste at an underground disposal site in Asse, Germany, by flooding is the cheapest of several waste management options but would produce dangerous amounts of radioactive methane in
groundwater within 150-750 years, according to a forthcoming report from the German radiation protection agency (BfS). The findings are significant because the site, an ex-salt mine containing nuclear research waste, is geologically similar to the planned long-term disposal site at Gorleben. The report could influence calculations of nuclear waste disposal costs. (more…)

The French nuclear power company Areva could end up paying billions of euros to compensate for delays in the Olkiluoto nuclear power project.

A report in the online financial publication Capital said that Areva could pay the power generation company Teollisuuden Voima up to 2.2 billion euros. The publication based its report on information from confidential sources. Areva refutes the claims. (more…)

The nuclear industry in Britain is killing billions of fish every year and taking a devastating toll of stocks, an Oxford University academic suggests.

The impact can be so severe in the worst-affected regions of the seas around Britain that death rates are equivalent to half the commercial catch for some species. (more…)

RUSSIANS say nuclear power is a smart hat for stupid people, says the Dutch photographer Robert Knoth. His exhibition Certificate No. 000358/ at the Australian Centre for Photography documents the effects of nuclear pollution - from weapons testing, fuel production to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster - on the stoic citizens of the former Soviet Union. (more…)

WASHINGTON, Oct. 22 — In 1979, in the dark freeze of the cold war and six months after the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Middletown, Pa., they packed Madison Square Garden for a series of “No Nukes” concerts that seemed to echo a generation’s fear of atomic Armageddon.

Now, the musicians, Bonnie Raitt, Graham Nash and Jackson Browne, aging, activist rock stars, have reunited to battle the nuclear power industry on Capitol Hill. (more…)

Big Bang Changes Cumbrian Skyline

Updated: 12:37, Saturday September 29, 2007

Four cooling towers at Sellafield’s Calder Hall site in Cumbria have been razed to the ground after helping generate electricity for nearly 50 years.

The world’s first commercial nuclear power station is being demolished. (more…)

The nuclear reactor at Dimona is not expected to be shut down in the next few years, despite its advanced age and the customary practice in other countries to decommission reactors after 40 years, according to the deputy CEO of the Negev Nuclear Research Center. (more…)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU citizens largely favour renewable energies while only 20 percent are for nuclear energy, according to a new European Commission survey.

The Eurobarometer study - published on Monday (8 January) just two days ahead of the publication of the commission’s major EU energy plan - shows that 80 percent of EU citizens back solar energy while 71 percent are in favour of wind energy. (more…)

Results from a Eurobarometer survey reveal that EU citizens remain uninformed about radioactive waste and are sceptical about the credibility of information from national governments and the media on nuclear energy. (more…)