BERN — The Swiss government on Wednesday recommended to parliament that the country's five nuclear power plants should not be replaced as they age, leaving them to be phased out by 2034.
The move, to be accompanied by a switch to more renewable energy, follows Switzerland's decision to suspend plans to replace its nuclear power stations in the wake of the Fukushima accident in Japan in April.
MOSCOW — The Russian nuclear industry has profited handsomely from building reactors in developing countries, including India, China and Iran. Now it is testing the prospect of becoming a major supplier to the European Union, too.
 INES 2 |
Exposure of a worker in excess of statutory annual dose limits |
On 31 August 2010 during the annual refuelling outage of the Leibstadt NPP, a diver was performing maintenance work in the fuel transfer pool within the fuel building. After completion of this work, he recovered an unidentified object and placed it into a transport basket. While the basket was lifted, before reaching the surface of the water, an alarm of the area radiation monitor was triggered. Therefore, the basket was lowered again.
As a result of the handling of the object, the diver received a hand dose of about 1,000 mSv which is twice the statutory limit of 500 mSv.
Constant hold-ups, skyrocketing costs, faulty construction…Finland’s new Olkiluoto reactor, touted as the great white hope for Europe’s nuclear sector, is looking more and more like a great white elephant – and casting a fat black shadow over the whole industry.
INES 2 |
Exposure of two workers in excess of statutory annual dose limits |
On 31 July 2009, Unit 2 of the Beznau NPP was shut down for maintenance. As part of the scheduled maintenance, it was planned to test the pressure in the primary circuit – this is done every 10 years – and as preparation for the later use of a camera two employees were installing lamps in the enclosed space beneath the reactor pressure vessel. Running through this space are double-walled tubes through which probes can be fed to measure the neutron flux in the core.
A study to investigate whether living close to a nuclear power plant increases the risk of childhood cancer is being co-financed by electricity companies.
The decision to allow the firms, Axpo and BKW Energy, to fund around a quarter of the SFr820,000 ($672,000) study raises questions about whether they will try to influence the results, due to be published in 2011.
Persuading local residents that they should nuclear waste in their backyard is not an easy job. But that’s exactly what officials from the Federal Energy Office are doing. They are touring the country, holding information sessions in the regions identified as possible storage sites. One of the candidates is Wellenberg. That particularly upsets voters in canton Nidwalden since they have twice turned down a proposal to build a nuclear waste repository in Wellenberg. Vincent Landon went to a public meeting in Stans and has this report.
Swiss electricity companies, Axpo and BKW Energy, are submitting plans to replace the country's oldest nuclear plants with two new facilities.
The firms confirmed on Thursday they would be filing an initial application with the Federal Energy Office for licences to replace two reactors at Beznau in canton Aargau and Mühleberg in canton Bern.
A Swiss nuclear power plant has been temporarily deactivated as part of routine inspections at the facility.
BKW energy company authorities carrying out checks at the Mühleberg plant near Bern decided to switch off the plant on Saturday as a precaution in between two operational tests.
Swiss brothers Urs and Marco Tinner - suspected of involvement in nuclear smuggling – will file a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights next month.
Their lawyer said Switzerland had disregarded the European Convention on Human Rights by keeping the engineers in custody for nearly four years without an arraignment.
