An EU consortium on the geological disposal of radioactive waste has issued a research plan to deliver scientific and technological information on the construction of permanent underground sites. A consultation on the plan runs until next week.
The IGD-TP group wants Europe to have built its first disposal facilities by 2025. It aims to provide common advice on the safe disposal of highly radioactive waste. France, Finland and Sweden have the most advanced projects.
The nuclear industry could receive a £3.4bn windfall as a result of plans to set a carbon floor price, according to green campaigners.
WWF and Greenpeace argue the coalition’s move to make low-carbon technologies more profitable by setting a minimum carbon price would provide a big boost to the nuclear sector. They argue the move breaches its promise not to provide subsidies for new nuclear power.
Constant hold-ups, skyrocketing costs, faulty construction…Finland’s new Olkiluoto reactor, touted as the great white hope for Europe’s nuclear sector, is looking more and more like a great white elephant – and casting a fat black shadow over the whole industry.
Major setback for energy plans as report finds flaws in US and French models
COPENHAGEN — Six Greenpeace activists Monday boarded a ship carrying French-made steam turbines bound for a new nuclear power station in Finland, the environmental group said.
The protestors climbed on board the Happy Ranger as it made its way through the Fehmarn Belt strait between Denmark and Germany and unfurled banners including one which read "Nuclear madness, made in France".
The Western media reported last week on how the German company Urenco shipped nuclear material to Siberia, where the highly toxic waste was stored in containers in the open air. The company has stopped deliveries and will store the material with higher standards in Germany in the future.
The radiation warning sign was so small that few passers-by took note in the commuter rail station in Kapitolovo, Russia. Fifty-six steel canisters were sitting there on a summer day three years ago. Just a stone's throw away, people were waiting for trains to take them to downtown St. Petersburg.
Industry promised subsidy if market price fails to encourage new plants
PARIS (AFP) — Two senior executives at French state energy giant Electricite de France (EDF) have been charged on suspicion of spying on Greenpeace, a judicial official said Tuesday.
EDF security chiefs Pierre Francois and Pierre Durieux are charged with conspiring to hack into computer systems including at the environmental group, the official said, confirming a report on the Mediapart website.
Individual payments of up to £1m have been handed out from the public purse as a "golden goodbye" to directors at the loss-making nuclear holding group BNFL, according to the latest set of accounts.
David Bonser, executive director for human resources and a key figure in the development of BNFL's troubled Thorp reprocessing plant, received £1,046,350 compensation for ending his employment last month. That was on top of an annual salary and bonuses worth £577,112 for the 12 months to March 31, 2008.
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.
