Nuclear power in Europe

An accident at Germany’s sole uranium enrichment facility in North Rhine Westphalia has left one worker in hospital under observation.

The incident occurred at the plant in the town of Gronau, when a room in the uranium enrichment facility was accidently exposed to radioactive material. The worker was in the room when the accident occurred, and was taken to the hospital as a precaution. He is expected to be released Friday. (more…)

The French nuclear industry is in turmoil as uranium supplies have dried up and the treatment of spent fuel has been blocked amid an increasingly bitter row between the heads of its two main state operators.

EDF, the electricity group that runs 58 reactors in France, said that Areva, the nuclear energy group, had stopped uranium deliveries on January 4 and was refusing to take away spent fuel for reprocessing. (more…)

The world is about to enter a period of unprecedented investment in nuclear power. The combined threats of climate change, energy security and fears over the high prices and dwindling reserves of oil are forcing governments towards the nuclear option. The perception is that nuclear power is a carbon-free technology, that it breaks our reliance on oil and that it gives governments control over their own energy supply.

That looks dangerously overoptimistic, says Michael Dittmar, from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich who publishes the final chapter of an impressive four-part analysis of the global nuclear industry on the arXiv today. (more…)

The Western media reported last week on how the German company Urenco shipped nuclear material to Siberia, where the highly toxic waste was stored in containers in the open air. The company has stopped deliveries and will store the material with higher standards in Germany in the future.

The radiation warning sign was so small that few passers-by took note in the commuter rail station in Kapitolovo, Russia. Fifty-six steel canisters were sitting there on a summer day three years ago. Just a stone’s throw away, people were waiting for trains to take them to downtown St. Petersburg. (more…)

BRUSSELS, Dec. 8 (Xinhua) — European Union (EU) foreign ministers on Monday endorsed a plan for the UN nuclear watchdog agency to maintain an international nuclear fuel bank.

“The Council (of Ministers) decides to express its support for the establishment of a nuclear fuel bank placed under the control of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency),” said the ministers in a statement. (more…)

The increased sourcing of raw uranium that will arise from nuclear new build is an ethical and environmental nightmare currently being ignored by the government.

The World Nuclear Association (WNA), the trade body for companies that make up 90% of the industry, admits that in “emerging uranium producing countries” there is frequently no adequate environmental health and safety legislation, let alone monitoring. It is considerately proposing a Charter of Ethics containing principles of uranium stewardship for its members to follow. But this is a self-policing voluntary arrangement. Similarly, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s safety guide to the Management of Radioactive Waste from the Mining and Milling of Ores (pdf) are not legally binding on operators. (more…)

MOSCOW, Nov. 18 (UPI) — Russia’s state-run uranium mining concern Atomredmetzoloto said it would increase uranium production to 3,841 tons this year.

Proven uranium reserves in Russia have reached 545,000 metric tons, a 275 percent increase from 2006, Natural Resources Minister Yury Trutnev said Tuesday, RIA Novosti reported. (more…)

PARIS (Reuters) – Tests on water tables under French nuclear sites, after a major uranium leak in the south earlier this year, showed there were no significant environmental or health dangers, a government committee said on Friday.

Plant operator Areva said in July that 30 cubic meters of liquid containing non-enriched uranium was accidentally poured onto the ground and into a river at the Tricastin nuclear site in southeastern France. (more…)

MOSCOW, October 21 (RIA Novosti) – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will discuss trade, energy and conflict in the South Caucasus with his Armenian counterpart, Serzh Sargisyan, at talks in Armenia on October 21, a Kremlin official said.

Bilateral trade grew 13%, year-on-year, in the first eight months of 2008 to reach $536.5 million, the Kremlin said earlier. Russia is a leading trade partner of Armenia and is one of the biggest investors in the country’s economy, with accrued investment from Russia topping $1.6 billion from 1991 to July 1, 2008. (more…)

Estonia has completed the decade-long clean-up of one of Europe’s most hazardous radioactive waste dumps on the Baltic coast, an official in charge of the operation said Monday.

“EU experts considered the radioactive waste storage at Sillamae one of the four most dangerous sites of its kind in Europe,” Tonis Kaasik, director of the OkoSil firm responsible for the clean-up of the Soviet-era dump told AFP. (more…)