The energy giant EDF has been accused of playing down the threat of flooding at Dungeness after it emerged that one of the nuclear power plant’s reactors was quietly shut down for five months last year after experts identified risk of a Fukushima-style disaster.
EDF closed the reactor on the Kent coast on 22 May to allow work on a new flood protection wall, after alerting the Office of Nuclear Regulation that without urgent work the site was at risk of being inundated by sea water.
Britain is in talks with the Russian state nuclear company about building a nuclear power station in the UK, an official said on Tuesday.
Hergen Haye, head of new nuclear development at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), told students at Edinburgh University that active discussions were taking place in London after a memorandum of understanding had been signed with Russia. "I can tell you that, behind closed doors and with microphones switched off, there are interesting debates happening in Whitehall," he said. "Russia wants to build a nuclear power station in the UK."
Managers of a nuclear waste dump on the Cumbria coast have been ordered to start preparations to defend the site against floods and erosion, amid fears that radioactive material could one day leak into the sea.
Much of the waste buried in vaults and concrete trenches at the Low Level Waste Repository (LLWR) near the village of Drigg originates from one of the world's most contaminated nuclear sites, Sellafield, a few miles away. The waste dump is expected ultimately to require protective flood barriers.
The UK's back-end nuclear waste management plans for new-build reactors have yet to be notified to the European Commission for State Aid clearance, the Department of Energy and Climate Change told Platts Wednesday.
A notification relating to the Hinkley Investment Contract, ancillary agreements and state credit guarantee was submitted by the UK to the EC on October 22, 2013. It is this notification that the EC has decided to put through an in-depth State Aid investigation.
Plans by EDF Energy to build Britain's first nuclear reactor for a generation were in disarray last night after Brussels said that the controversial subsidy deal agreed with the Government could amount to illegal state aid.
In a withering initial assessment, the European Commission said that consumers would end up paying up to £17.6 billion of "super-normal" subsidies via their energy bills to EDF Energy, which is controlled by the French Government.
Its most damning objection was that the subsidies were entirely unnecessary, since nuclear power would become economic by the end of the next decade, according to the Government's own forecasts.
PARIS (Reuters) - Areva is in talks with the French government to release some funds set aside for dismantling its nuclear installations in France to help the company finance a new British nuclear reactor, a newspaper reported.
Britain signed a deal with France's state-owned utility EDF in October to build a 16-billion pound nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point in southwest Britain, the first new plant in Europe since the Fukushima disaster.
It was hailed by UK Chancellor George Osborne as a "new dawn" - but serious questions remain about the security implications of Britain's nuclear energy deal with China.
The UK government has refused to say whether China's planned investment in the British nuclear industry was approved by the National Security Council - the body that assess the risks from foreign investment in critical national infrastructure projects.
Chancellor George Osborne announced during his trip to China in October that Chinese state owned companies CGN and CNNC would be allowed to take a 40% stake in the company planning to build the Hinkley C nuclear power station in Somerset.
A radical plan to dispose of Britain's huge store of civil plutonium - the biggest in the world - by "burning" it in a new type of fast reactor is now officially one of three "credible options" being considered by the Government, The Independent understands.
However, further delays have hit attempts to make a final decision on what to do with the growing plutonium stockpile which has been a recurring headache for successive governments over the past three decades.
The UK Government’s plans to raise £3bn from the sale of uranium enrichment group Urenco may have hit a stumbling block after it emerged that the Dutch government is understood to have raised concerns about the sale of its stake.
The Dutch and UK governments each own a third of Urenco, one of the world’s biggest uranium enrichment companies, while Germany’s top two utilities, RWE and E.ON, own the rest.
(Reuters) - The storm that swept across southern Britain on Monday morning caused nuclear power outages at the Dungeness B21 and B22 units, operator EDF Energy said.
EDF Energy said on its website that both units, which have a capacity of 550 megawatts (MW) each, came off at 0744 GMT on Monday, adding that unit availability was expected to be zero for the next seven days.
"The shutdown was weather-related. The plant reacted as it should and shut down safely," an EDF Energy spokeswoman said.
