Switzerland

More security for nuclear plants

Sunday, February 10, 2008

The owners of Switzerland's nuclear power plants are preparing to increase security around their reactors, with a new type of armed patrol.

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WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM: The Public Eye Is Watching

Friday, January 25, 2008

By Gustavo Capdevila - BERN, Jan 17 (IPS) - Civil society is in Davos, Switzerland once again to keep a watchful eye on events at the World Economic Forum (WEF). The social and environmental behaviour of 1,000 of the world’s most powerful companies will be scutinised at this annual meeting of business leaders, presidents and prime ministers, and free-market economics experts.

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Swiss Consortium Planning New Nuclear Power Plants

Friday, December 14, 2007

Global Insight, December 14, 2007, Matthew Hall

Swiss energy groups Axpo and BKW have established a joint company to carry forward plans to build two new 1,600MW nuclear power plants in the country. The new plants are to be located at Beznau and Meuhleberg, where existing nuclear plants are due for decommissioning. The joint company, Resun, has indicated it will lodge planning applications by the end of 2008. The permitting process is expected to take four or five years, followed by several years of construction work, meaning the plants are not scheduled to be commissioned until after 2020. Axpo has estimated the plants will cost between 5 billion and 6 billion Swiss francs ($4US.4 billion-$5US.3 billion) to build.

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Switzerland to return decommissioning funds to nuclear plant operators

Monday, December 10, 2007

Switzerland has issued a new decree to address excess funds for nuclear decommissioning and waste disposal, the Swiss Energy Office said on Monday.

The decree will take into account the longer-expected lifetime of nuclear power plants from 40 to 50 years, which has left excess sums totalling around CHF 600-700 million (EUR 363-423 million) in the funds. These sums must now be returned to nuclear power plant operators. The total cost of decommissioning and waste disposal for Switzerland's five nuclear power plants was estimated at CHF 13.7 billion in 2001, the majority of which (CHF 11.8 billion) was allocated for the disposal of waste. By the end of 2006, around CHF 4.4 billion had accumulated in the funds.

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Anti-nuclear activists demonstrate discreetly in front of WHO

Friday, November 16, 2007

Le Monde, 26 September 2007

You could easily miss them. But for five months now, every day, two or three people, with posters around their necks, stand at an intersection in Geneva, from 10.00 until 18.00, Monday to Friday, facing the World Health Organization, and distributing to passers-by a dossier entitled Health Catastrophe of Chernobyl: WHO guilty of non assistance to populations in danger”.

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Radioactive Nimby: No One Wants Nuclear Waste

Friday, November 16, 2007

SWEEPING his hand across the surface of a warm cask heated by some of the most radioactive material on earth, Walter Heep says he is confident that the contents can be kept safely and securely aboveground for the next few decades.

Asked what might happen beyond that time frame — particularly if Swiss voters continue to reject proposals to bury nuclear waste permanently at a deep underground site — Mr. Heep is blunt about the problems that a lack of such a site will present for the future of the nuclear industry in Switzerland.

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Lucens reactor site may return to public use

Wednesday, August 9, 1989

Swiss voters in the region of the dismantled Lucens reactor have passed a proposal to return the site to civilian use. Lucens, Switzerland's first nuclear plant, was permanently shut down only one month after it began operation, after a partial fuel meltdown in 1969. The unit was an 8.5-MWe gas-cooled heavy-water reactor.

Residents of the canton (state) of Vaud approved a proposal for the final phase of decommissioning, ending the legal obligations to monitor the site.

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