HELSINKI, Nov 28 (Reuters) – Nuclear power will play a key role in helping the European Union cut its dependence on fossil fuels and secure future energy supplies, EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said on Friday.
“Nuclear energy will have a prominent role in leading the EU towards a low-carbon society,” Rehn said in the text of a speech at a conference in the Finnish city of Turku. (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…)
Regulators warn against common EU standards.
The European Commission will scale down its ambitions for EU-wide nuclear-safety rules when it publishes a draft directive next week (27 November). (more…)
SOFIA, Nov 18 (Reuters) – Romania is due to sign a deal with selected foreign bidders to build two more reactors at its nuclear power plant in Cernavoda on Nov. 20, one of the investors, GDF Suez, said on Tuesday. Earlier this year, the Balkan country decided to retain a 51 percent stake in the planned reactors and leave the remaining 49 percent for the six bidders it chose last year as partners.
The partners are Belgian Electrabel, owned by French power giant GDF Suez, German power giant RWE, Czech utility CEZ, Italy’s Enel, Spain’s Iberdrola and a Romanian unit of steel giant ArcelorMittal. (more…)
Brussels (Platts) – 13 Nov 2008 – The European Commission has stopped just short of directly exhorting EU countries to develop nuclear power in its updated overview of the EU nuclear sector unveiled Thursday as part of its second strategic European energy review.
“The choice to include nuclear energy in the energy mix lies with [EU countries],” said the EC in its nuclear overview, known by its French acronym PINC. (more…)
Prime Minister Robert Fico said he was unpleasantly surprised by the European Commission’s (EC) lack of a response to the meeting of the European Nuclear Energy Forum (ENEF).
“I am sorry that, despite the renewed interest in nuclear energy, the European Commission did not nominate a single member to attend the forum,” he said at ENEF’s opening session. “Neither Slovakia nor the Czech Republic came to the ENEF. Nonetheless, I’d like to confirm that we are interested in its activities.”
MADRID, Nov 2 (Reuters) – European Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs will propose a new EU-wide energy regulator with equal powers to national regulators and will push for greater independence for those state watchdogs, he said on Sunday.
“I am going to propose a new regulation both for national regulators, to increase their real independence and their capacity to intervene, and a new Agency of European Regulators, which has to have powers comparable with national regulators,” Piebalgs told the Sunday edition of Spanish newspaper ABC. (more…)
Aleksandras Abisala, chief negotiator over the extension of the Ignalina nuclear power plant, who used to speak about the considerable growth of the possibility to reach an agreement on the extension of the operation of the Ignalina nuclear power plant, now claims that Lithuania has lost this fight.
After the last week”s European Council in Brussels, when the hopes concerning the extension of the operation of the Ignalina nuclear power plant diminished, Abisala admits that Lithuania has lost the fight, lrt.lt writes. (more…)
BRUSSELS, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) — The European Commission underlined on Wednesday the need for a higher level of nuclear safety as a high-level group on nuclear safety and waste management met.
“While we can see a potential rise in the use of nuclear energy around the globe as well as in the EU, European citizens call for a strong European role in the field of nuclear safety,” said European Union (EU) Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs, who opened the meeting. (more…)
The EU needs to invest more in research if it is to meet its climate-change targets.
The world will need to generate 50% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2050 to minimise climate-change impacts, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has said, an awesome challenge that once again underlines the importance of investing in the next generation of renewable energy. (more…)
