Nuclear power in Europe

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…)

VILNIUS, Oct 9 (Reuters) – Lithuania may have to defy the European Union and keep its Ignalina nuclear power plant open beyond 2009 if the EU cannot help it assure energy supplies, the prime minister and economy minister said on Thursday.

Lithuania agreed under its EU entry treaty to close Ignalina, which has the same kind of reactors as at Chernobyl in Ukraine, where the world’s worst nuclear disaster happened in 1986. (more…)

BRUSSELS, Sept 17 (Reuters) – Lithuania’s hopes of being allowed to extend the life of its Ignalina nuclear power plant were dashed on Wednesday by the European Commission.

In its treaty on joining the European Union in 2004, Lithuania promised to shut by the end of 2009 the second reactor at the plant, which is similar to Ukraine’s Chernobyl facility where the world’s worst nuclear disaster struck in 1986. (more…)

The Vinca Institute of Nuclear Sciences, located 9 miles from Belgrade, is Yugoslavia’s oldest nuclear research institute. Established in 1948 as the Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, its efforts supposedly included an attempt to build a Yugoslav nuclear bomb. For almost 45 years, it collected Yugoslavia’s and Serbia’s radioactive waste. (more…)

On September 9 Bulgarian and international environmental organisations, including the local coalition BeleNE (No to Belene nuclear power plant) and Greenpeace, sent a letter to the European Union (EU) Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes asking her to investigate the tender procedures for subcontractors in the construction of Bulgaria’s Belene nuclear power plant. (more…)

Sofia. National movement Ecoglasnost has sent a letter of request to the European Commissioner for Energy Andris Piebalgs, whereby it insisted that Commissioner Piebalgs should take a stance on the NPP Belene issue. (more…)

VILNIUS, July 25 (Reuters) – Energy companies in the three Baltic states and Poland agreed on Friday to set up a joint venture to develop a nuclear power plant in Lithuania, the Lithuanian partner said.
The four countries have been negotiatng on the project for months and hammered out a deal on Friday in Copenhagen.

“The partners have agreed to Lithuania’s proposal to establish a joint project development company, in which LEO LT would hold a 51 percent stake,” Lithuania’s LEO LT said in a statement after a meeting.
Lithuania has said it wants to build a 3,200-3,400 megawatt nuclear power plant to replace its Soviet-era Ignalina nuclear facility, due to be shut down at the end of next year. (more…)

BRUSSELS, July 15 (Reuters) – The European Commission recommended on Tuesday that Slovakia improve the safety of two planned new units at its Mochovce nuclear power plant.

“Even though the project shows compliance with current national regulations as well as international recommendations … the Commission recommended a set of additional measures,” Commission spokesman Ferran Tarradellas Espuny told a briefing. (more…)

Greenpeace Finland said in a statement Monday that Brussels-based lobby the European Renewable Energies Federation had brought an action before the European Court of Justice challenging the European commission’s September 2007 declaration that a 570-million-euro guarantee granted by Coface, a privatised company that continues to act in its eponymous role as the French government’s export guarantee agency, to Finnish utility Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) did not constitute illegal state aid. (more…)