Green energy campaigners are attempting to block new nuclear power stations in the UK by complaining to the European Commission that government plans contravene EU competition regulations.
They say financial rules for nuclear operators include subsidies that have not been approved by the commission.
State owned Vattenfall, one of Europe’s largest power producing companies, has found itself in the middle of a political storm since it became known they had plans to sell their part of the Swedish power grid. Accusations that CEO Lars G. Josefsson has ‘pledged’ the entire corporate group, in an agreement with German authorities, has made the Minister for Enterprise, Maud Olofsson, to put forward strong criticism.
Industry promised subsidy if market price fails to encourage new plants
LONDON, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Britain has set up a watchdog to ensure that decommissioning the nuclear power plants that the government wants to be built, and disposing of the waste, does not cost the taxpayer anything.
The Nuclear Liabilities Financing Assurance Board (NLFAB) will scrutinise how the companies planning to build the new power plants will pay to shut them at the end of their useful lives and clean up the radioactive waste they produce.
The consortium with a £20bn contract to clean up Britain's Sellafield nuclear plant has been handed a blank cheque by the Government to pay for future accidents there.
Taxpayers are being forced to indemnify the winner of the £7.5bn contract to decommission the highly toxic Sellafield nuclear site in Cumbria against an accident because the bidders are based overseas. The preferred consortium will be announced on Friday.
Four consortia are vying for the contract, which could be worth £20bn over its lifetime, including US engineering giants Fluor, Bechtel, Washington Group and CH2M Hill, as well as French nuclear power group Areva and the Japanese firm Toshiba. UK companies Serco and Amec are also members of overseas-led consortia.
Silvia Pavoni reports on the potential and pitfalls of private finance for the UK´s new nuclear power station building programme.
Politicians are famous for announcing grand policy initiatives that have not been properly thought through and that then prove unworkable in practice. The UK government´s new nuclear power programme might be seen as one such ill thought out venture. It wants to build 10 new nuclear plants, replacing existing ones that are due to close, and proposes that the financing should be fulfilled entirely by the private sector. The first plant is planned to become operational by 2017 and the government hopes that the scheme will increase nuclear energy supply from the current 19% of national consumption.
Nuclear power plant operators in the Czech Republic are facing a huge and unexpected increase in insurance costs, following a government decision to raise the amount of liability for damage compensation from 6 billion Kč ($384.9 million) to 8 billion Kč.
In March, the government issued a statement instructing the Industry and Trade Ministry to work with the Environment Ministry to implement the increase by preparing a ratification of the protocol to the Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage.
London, 10 April: Insurer Aon Corporation has warned that the UK's plan for a nuclear power renaissance must take into account risks of interruptions to the supply of uranium fuel.
The UK government is easing planning restrictions, in a bid to encourage private companies to build a new generation of nuclear power plants to help replace the existing, aging fleet of reactors. At a speech on 26 March, UK Business Secretary John Hutton called this new push for nuclear "the most significant opportunity for our energy economy since the exploitation of North Sea oil and gas".
BRUSSELS (Thomson Financial) - The European Commission said it will examine ways to make investments in nuclear energy easier.
At the European Nuclear Assembly conference here, energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs stressed the importance of nuclear energy for the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.
