From the Baltic to Bulgaria, governments in Eastern Europe are increasingly looking toward a revival of nuclear power generation to meet growing energy demand.
The renewed interest in nuclear energy in a region that has been under intense pressure from the European Union to close unsafe older- generation plants coincides with a lively debate in several West European countries, in which governments seek cleaner energy options to combat climate change.
VIENNA, September 29 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will provide $17 million to help improve safety at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the site of the world's worst civilian nuclear disaster, and fully decommission it, a top Russian nuclear official said on Monday.
Three reactors of the Chernobyl plant continued to operate for several years after reactor number four exploded in 1986, the last reactor shutting down in 2000. The reactors still contain nuclear fuel rods, and require constant monitoring. The fourth reactor is housed in a Soviet-era sarcophagus set to be replaced by a $1.4 bln metal structure.
MOSCOW (RIA Novosti) - Atomstroyexport, a Russian nuclear power construction company, said on Tuesday it had completed repairs on the concrete and steel shell encasing the Chernobyl reactor one month ahead of schedule.
The work involved repairs of an area around 420 square meters over the central part of the reactor's protective shelter.
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Twenty-two years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, work is under way on a colossal new shelter to cover the ruins and deadly radioactive contents of the exploded Soviet-era power plant.
For years, the original iron and concrete shelter that was hastily constructed over the reactor has been leaking radiation, cracking and threatening to collapse. The new one, an arch of steel, would be big enough to contain the Statue of Liberty.
By Patrick Lannin and Nerijus Adomaitis
VISAGINAS, Lithuania (Reuters) - When Lithuania's sole nuclear power station closes next year, European Union officials will sigh with relief, but nearby residents are already fretting over the future of their town.
The EU's concern is safety. The Ignalina plant has the same type of reactors as Chernobyl in Ukraine, where a 1986 reactor meltdown caused the world's worst nuclear disaster.
Lithuania has already spent 51.2 million euros on projects aimed at decommissioning the first unit of Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (INPP) closed late in 2004. Direct European Union (EU) support for the projects made up some 29 million euros in two years.
The overall amount excludes the support extended by the Ignalina International Decommissioning Support Fund (IIDSF), administered by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which funds the decommissioning projects independently via direct payments to contractors or suppliers.
Lithuania's state-controlled Lietuvos Elektrine (Lithuanian Power Plant, or LPP) has invited international bids to design and build a new combined cycle gas turbine plant (CCGT) with a capacity of 350 to 450 megawatts (MW), the Economy Ministry said on Wednesday.
The project, worth an estimated 720 million litas (EUR 209 mln), is part of ongoing upgrades at the LPP, which will become the main generator of electricity in Lithuania after the shutdown of the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (INPP) in 2009. The CCGT project will be financed from the Ignalina International Decommissioning Support Fund, which is administered by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and other resources, the ministry said. The new plant will produce electricity at around half the cost of power generated by the existing units of the LPP.
PARIS A French-led consortium will build a new shelter to encase the reactor at Ukraine's Chernobyl power station that exploded in 1986 in history's worst nuclear accident.
The new shelter will enclose the existing concrete "sarcophagus" erected hastily after the 1986 accident, which has been crumbling and leaking radiation for more than a decade.
The contract for the Novarka consortium, including Bouygues SA and Vinci SA, will be worth more than €430 million (US$593.14 million), Vinci said in a statement Tuesday night.
SOURCE: Dnevnik (Bulgaria)
The Kozloduy International Decommissioning Support Fund (KIDSF), administered by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), will grant 39 mln euro ($53.1 mln) to Bulgaria for the construction of a thermal power plant on the site of the Kozloduy nuclear plant, Dnevnik daily reported on July 8, 2007.
Lithuania should join the International Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (INPP) Decommissioning Support Fund (Ignalina IDSF) as a new member by mid-2007 under the draft amendment to the fund's regulations submitted to the Assembly of Contributors to Ignalina IDSF held in London in December.
"It means that Lithuania will be able to get more information and will have a greater say since it would have a vote," Arturas Dainius, the Economy Ministry Secretary, told BNS.
