Nuclear power in Europe

Brussels is against member states exporting their nuclear waste to countries outside the EU or to store it in joint sites, energy commissioner Gunther Oettinger said, as the commission is working on a set of common safety standards for this dangerous material.

“It is the duty of national politicians to do their homework,” Mr Oettinger told Financial Times Deutschland in an interview published on Wednesday (10 March). The German commissioner warned against common storage sites, as well as exporting the radioactive material outside the EU, for instance Russia. (more…)

Brussels – The European Commission intends to propose EU- wide rules on the disposal of nuclear waste by the end of 2010, an official said Thursday.

‘Nuclear waste management is an important area which needs to be addressed by both industry and national governments (…) the role of the EU is to set a common framework for the establishment of national waste management programs,’ said Marlene Holzner, spokeswoman for energy commissioner Gunther Oettinger, during a briefing in Brussels. (more…)

Collective nuclear waste dumps, called European Regional Repositories, are to crop up in Eastern Europe, also in Poland, in the near future.

This is a joint EU initiative, currently developed in the European Repository Development Organization, of which Poland is a member. Negotiations on the construction of the collective geological repositories and the transport routes for nuclear waste are to begin in May. The talks are expected to last two years. (more…)

High-level nuclear waste from across the European Union could be shipped to eastern Europe for burial in a central underground storage facility under plans being considered by EU member states.

The Times has learnt that the project, which comes amid a resurgence of interest in nuclear power, could be given the green light later this year by the European Commission. Ewoud Verhoef, deputy director of Covra, the agency responsible for the storage of the Netherlands´ nuclear waste, said: “The nuclear programme in Holland is small and the cost of building a geological repository is very high. We only have one nuclear reactor in the Netherlands so there would be big advantages to a shared solution.” (more…)

The revival of atomic energy in Europe and a new nuclear-friendly mood in both the EU Commission and the EU Parliament has given the industry’s powerful lobby in Brussels a
shot in the arm. (more…)

The development of new nuclear plant could be prevented if the government allows too much windpower to be built, energy giants EDF and Eon have claimed.

EDF – the world’s largest nuclear operator with 58 plants – is calling on the government to lower its proposed renewable electricity target from 35% of supply in 2020 to just 20%. (more…)

BRUSSELS, Dec. 8 (Xinhua) — European Union (EU) foreign ministers on Monday endorsed a plan for the UN nuclear watchdog agency to maintain an international nuclear fuel bank.

“The Council (of Ministers) decides to express its support for the establishment of a nuclear fuel bank placed under the control of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency),” said the ministers in a statement. (more…)

Two previous proposals failed; European Commission seeks greater interest in nuclear energy.

All nuclear activity in the EU will be subject to common safety rules, if a draft directive adopted by the European Commission wins the backing of member states.

Under the plans, published on 26 November, international nuclear safety standards – the 1996 Convention on Nuclear Safety (CNS), and the 2006 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Fundamentals – would form the backbone of legislation that would be mandatory for all EU member states. (more…)

PRAGUE (AFP) — Central Europe’s top power producer, Czech-based CEZ, is pinning hopes on the financial crisis to thwart the approval of the EU’s green package, saying it would hit hard at the region’s coal-dependent industry.

The EU’s climate-energy package seeks to raise the share of renewable sources in power production by 2020, boost energy savings and tighten the rules for trading in CO2 emission permits in a bid to cut greenhouse gas emissions. (more…)

The former Finnish prime minister Paavo Lipponen (soc dem) said at an energy seminar Thursday that Finland should greenlight all three nuclear power stations planned by utilities in order to bolster the country’s energy security.

He added Finland should simultaneously boost spending on energy research and development and investments. (more…)