Climate change is an often heard argument for the once called nuclear "renaissance". However, if one looks closer, there was something fishy about the industry using climate change protection as its most prominent feature... » Read more
More then thirty years of debate, and the controversy remains as polarised as ever. This website (to be fair - whose maintainer is anti-nuclear) collects news about nuclear power in Europe, sorted by nuclear power plant, type of power plant, country etc.
By presenting different (media) angles on current nuclear issues, we hope to be able to cut out some spin, either pro or against, and to allow the reader to make up his or her own mind about today's pro's and con's of nuclear power.
In the menu on the right you can select your country, the nuclear power plant in your neighbourhood, or your favourite company and read latest (most English) news about it.
Latest nuclear news
Sberbank to Lend $1.1 Billion to Slovakia's Largest Power Company
Wednesday, June 11, 2014Slovensko Elektrarne Will Have to Buy Russian Nuclear Exports
MOSCOW—Russia's largest lender Sberbank (SBER.MZ +0.11%) has agreed to provide a loan of €870 million ($1.18 billion) to Slovenske Elektrarne, some of which Slovakia's largest power company will have to spend on Russian nuclear exports, the companies said Tuesday.
The deal signed Monday follows a memorandum of understanding the two parties sealed at an international business forum in St. Petersburg in May, which came against a backdrop of cooling relations between Russia and the West over Ukraine crisis.
German power generators Looking for lifelines
Tuesday, June 10, 2014Embattled E.ON and RWE turn to the government and the courts for help
Jun 7th 2014, BERLIN - RECENT years have brought little but bad news for Germany’s power generators. Having overinvested in gas- and coal-fired plants before the financial crisis, the two largest, E.ON and RWE, ended up with excess capacity in the ensuing downturn—just as lavish subsidies to wind- and solar-power producers were bringing a host of new competitors to the market. After the nuclear accident at Fukushima in Japan in 2011, the German government decided that all nuclear plants in the country must close by 2022, bringing forward the huge costs of decommissioning them. To cap it all, ever more industrial consumers of electricity have gone “off the grid”, generating their own power. Shares in the two power giants have fallen by almost half in the past five years, whereas Germany’s DAX stockmarket index has almost doubled in that time (see chart).
Russia to Help Kazakhstan Build Nuclear Power Plant
Friday, May 30, 2014ASTANA, May 29 (RIA Novosti) – Russia and Kazakhstan have signed a memorandum on the construction of a nuclear power plant in Kazakhstan during a Supreme Eurasian Economic Council session in Astana on Thursday.
The agreement was signed by nuclear corporations Rosatom and Kazatomprom in the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Kazakh counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Finland's TVO postpones next nuclear plant
Wednesday, May 21, 2014HELSINKI May 20 (Reuters) - Finnish utility Teollisuuden Voima on Tuesday asked for a five-year extension to submit a construction license application for Olkiluoto 4 nuclear unit.
The consortium was due to apply for the Olkiluoto 4 construction license by 2015, but problems at its current plant project make decision-making regarding the following project impossible by that, it said.
Vapaavuori expects decision on Fennovoima nuclear plant in August
Tuesday, May 20, 2014Economic Affairs Minister Jan Vapaavuori says government isn’t likely to make a decision on the construction of a nuclear power plant by the power consortium Fennovoima before August. Vapaavuori told Yle that the project is still important to the main government partner the National Coalition Party.
Speaking on Yle’s Aamu-tv breakfast programme Tuesday Vapaavuori confirmed that the government wouldn’t be making a decision on the proposed nuclear power plant in Pyhäjoki, northwest Finland until August.
German utilities and government clash over nuclear ‘bad bank’
Monday, May 12, 2014Germany’s nuclear industry is fighting Berlin over a plan to transfer the risks of shutting down facilities to a publicly owned foundation that would act as a “bad bank”.
The power companies are engaged in a decommissioning exercise with an estimated cost of more than €30bn after Berlin announced an accelerated exit from nuclear energy following the Fukushima disaster in 2011. The work includes demolishing nuclear plants and disposing of radioactive waste.
European Commission likely to find Hinkley aid illegal - expert
Thursday, May 8, 2014The European Commission will almost certainly find that EDF Energy's funding mechanism for the construction of the Hinkley Point C nuclear unit in the UK is illegal state aid, an Austrian law professor told Platts.
Franz Leidenmuhler, who specializes in EU state aid cases and European competition law, said in an email that he believed "a rejection is nearly unavoidable. The Statement of the Commission in its first findings of December 18, 2013 is too clear. I do not think that some conditions could change that clear result."
France caught between nuclear cliff and investment wall
Thursday, May 1, 2014PARIS, April 30 (Reuters) - France must decide in the next few years whether it wants to continue its nuclear-driven energy policy at a cost of up to 300 billion euros ($415 billion) or if it wants to embark on an equally costly route towards using other fuels.
Most of the country's 58 nuclear reactors were built during a short period in the 1980s, and about half will reach their designed age limits of 40 in the 2020s, pushing France towards what industry calls "the nuclear cliff."
Czechs pull plug on nuclear expansion
Tuesday, April 22, 2014More than five years of international intrigue ended with a whimper on April 10th as ČEZ, a Czech utility company, officially cancelled the planned expansion of the Temelín nuclear power plant, 120 km south of Prague in the South Bohemia region. The project was undone by a fall in electricity prices and the spectre of a botched state energy scheme in years past.
Nuclear industry says weak carbon price justifies state funding
Monday, April 14, 2014BRUSSELS, April 10 (Reuters) - FORATOM, which represents Europe's nuclear industry, said new atomic power generation will need financial support as long as carbon prices are low and hit back at EU regulators' criticism of funding for a plant to be built by EDF.
The European Commission, the EU regulator, has launched an in-depth investigation into Britain's plan to provide public funding for a 19 billion euro ($26.37 billion) nuclear plant to be built at Hinkley Point in Britain.