Nuclear power in Europe

BERLIN (Dow Jones)--German utility Vattenfall Europe AG has again delayed the planned restart of its nuclear power plant Kruemmel by some six months, Chief Executive Tuomo Hatakka told Dow Jones Newswires Tuesday.

On the sidelines of the Handelsblatt energy conference in Berlin Hatakka also indicated that the company's second northern German reactor--Brunsbuettel--might not be restarted at all if a review of the two power plants shows that a recently introduced tax on nuclear fuel in Germany makes the reactor loss-making.

PARIS/FRANKFURT, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Power groups GDF Suez, Iberdrola and RWE said on Thursday they were pulling out of a multi-billion dollar nuclear project in Romania, confirming an earlier report by Reuters.

"Economic and market-related uncertainties surrounding this project, related for the most part to the present financial crisis, are not reconcilable now with the capital requirements of a new nuclear power project," the groups said in a joint statement.

The Decision-in-Principle (DiP) in 2002 to build a fifth nuclear power plant made Finland the center of attention when the nuclear power industry began to see its chances. Finland is the first country to have made a decision on final storage of nuclear waste. Finland is also the only Nordic country in which energy consumption is rising.

The foreign workers – including many Bulgarians and Romanians – on the construction site of EDF's new-generation nuclear reactor in Flamanville – face severe working conditions, according to French media.

Some one-third of the total number of 3 200 workers of the French state energy company EDF on the site in Flamanville are foreigners – mostly Romanians and Bulgarians but also Spanish and Portuguese, reported French news site Europe 1 citing the France Soir newspaper.