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…)
Balkan states are gambling on the nuclear option as the best way to reduce the energy shortage but whether the risks pay off remains to be seen.
The three guards stand at the gate in the 40°C afternoon heat, ignoring the bustle around them. Grim-looking barbed wire coils round the top of the tall fence, as if designed to stop convicts escaping from prison. (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…)
PRAGUE (AFP) — European power companies called Friday for urgent EU-wide moves to clear the way for new nuclear plants, stressing the security and climate change dangers of a failure to act.
“We have a barrel of oil costing 135 dollars a barrel, it is urgent to act. Industry cannot wait for a gradual approach to lead to convergence (in harmonised safety rules),” Electricite de France board member Bruno Lescoeur warned on the second, final day of the European Nuclear Energy Forum. (more…)
EUOBSERVER / CLIMATE TECHNOLOGY – For the millions of Europeans who mistrust nuclear power, it may cause goose-pimples to think that at least six new plants will soon join the 152 reactors already fizzing away on EU soil. But despite fresh talk of how nuclear can cut CO2, the industry is still struggling to get over the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
A visitor to a typical reactor could be convinced the atom is a magic key to the EU’s energy woes: standing on the core, just 10 metres under one’s feet, splitting uranium atoms generate enough power (1,100 MW) to light up all the homes in Finland for a year. There is no sound. There is no smell. As you leave, a scanning machine says “You have not been contaminated.”
(more…)
