Decommissioning

German power generators Looking for lifelines

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Embattled 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).

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Move to deal with deadly legacy of nuclear power plants

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Britain is set to tackle a 60-year-old problem that has dogged successive governments: how to resolve the deadly legacy from the country's first generation of nuclear power plants.

The UK is home to the world's largest stockpile of plutonium, with more than 100 tonnes of the highly radioactive material.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, whose job it is to look after the plutonium, is preparing to give its recommendation on how the government should deal with the problem, with an announcement expected as early as next month.

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Plans for new nuclear power stations could split the government

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

IT IS hard to escape from history. Just as Britain is about to embark on an ambitious programme to build a new generation of nuclear power stations, an old atomic relic offers a timely reminder of the risks. On June 1st Chris Huhne, the newly installed Liberal Democrat energy secretary, revealed that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, the publicly funded outfit charged with cleaning up Britain’s old nuclear power stations, is facing a £4 billion funding shortfall over the coming four years. For a department with an annual budget of just £3 billion, that is, as Mr Huhne puts it, an “existential” problem.

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Nuclear Does Not Make Economic Sense Say Studies

Monday, February 15, 2010

BERLIN, Feb 12, 2010 (IPS) - The enormous technical and financial risks involved in the construction and operation of new nuclear power plants make them prohibitive for private investors, rebutting the thesis of a renaissance in nuclear energy, say several independent European studies.

The risks include high construction costs, likely long delays in building, extended periods of depreciation of equipment inherent to the construction and operation of new power plants and the lack of guarantees for prices of electricity.

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Soviet-era Lithuanian nuclear plant shuts down under EU deal

Friday, January 1, 2010

VILNIUS — Lithuania Thursday shut down its Soviet-era nuclear plant under an EU deal in a move set to drive up electricity prices amid an economic crisis and leave it counting on ex-master Moscow for power.

"At 11:00 pm (2100 GMT) everything went offline. It all went according to plan," Viktor Sevaldin, director of the 26-year-old plant, told AFP by telephone.

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