Germany

German regulator says nuclear reserve capacity not needed

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Germany's grid regulator Bundesnetzagentur (BNetzA) said Wednesday that it has decided against keeping one idled nuclear reactor on standby as reserve capacity for the coming two winter seasons to ensure power grid stability after the government permanently closed eight older reactors in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in March.

"Our investigations have shown that even in exceptional contingencies the transmission system will remain operational without the dispatch of a reserve nuclear power plant," BNetzA President Matthias Kurth said in a statement.

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E.ON's Brokdorf reactor may stay closed for weeks

Monday, August 22, 2011

Northern German nuclear reactor Brokdorf may stay closed for several weeks after it was taken offline on Sunday, a spokeswoman for operator E.ON said on Tuesday.

E.ON hoped to know by the end of this week what the future schedule for the plant would be, the spokeswoman said, adding that E.ON assumed that a transformer at the plant needed to be swapped out.

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German watchdog would examine any Gazprom-RWE deal

Friday, July 15, 2011

FRANKFURT/DUESSELDORF, July 11 (Reuters) - Germany's cartel office said on Monday it would "closely" examine any investment by Gazprom in RWE after reports the weakened German utility was open to an investment by the Russian gas monopoly.

Essen-based RWE has been hit by loss-making gas contracts and weak power prices, and is also under threat from a German tax on nuclear fuel that came into effect this year.

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How Angela Merkel became Germany's unlikely green energy champion

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is anything but a left-wing greenie. The party she leads, the Christian Democratic Union, is the political equivalent of the Republicans in the US. Her coalition government is decidedly pro-business. Often described as Europe's most powerful politician, Merkel's top priority is job creation and economic growth.

Yet if the chancellor succeeds with her new energy policy, she will become the first leader to transform an industrialized nation from nuclear and fossil fuel energy to renewable power.

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1000 Tons of German radioactive waste to be burned in Oak Ridge incinerator

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Energy Solutions of Oak Ridge, TN has applied to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to import up to 1000 tons of radioactive waste from Eckert and Ziegler Nuclitec, a German company that specializes in the collection, processing, and disposal of these materials from hospitals, research, and technical facilities world wide.

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Vattenfall CEO: Kruemmel Won't Go Online Before Mid-2011

Monday, January 24, 2011

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.

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E.ON may run Vattenfall's two north German reactors

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

FRANKFURT, Dec 15 (Reuters) - E.ON and Vattenfall are in talks that may give E.ON full management of two northern German nuclear power plants they jointly own and run, the two utilities said in a statement on Wednesday.

Both Kruemmel, a 1,402 megawatts (MW) capacity plant operated on a 50/50 basis, and 806 MW Brunsbuettel, where Vattenfall has two thirds and E.ON one third, have been offline since security glitches in the summer of 2007 grounded them.

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Germany's nuclear-extension legislation passes into law

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Berlin - Germany's extension of the legal lifetimes of 17 nuclear power plants passed into law Wednesday, with President Christian Wulff assenting to the legislation in Berlin.

The 12-year deferment of the sunset date for nuclear power, a key policy plank of Chancellor Angela Merkel's government, still faces challenges by anti-nuclear opponents in the courts.

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Russia proposes “electricity pipeline” to Germany

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Russia is proposing to build a high-voltage electricity cable from Kaliningrad to Germany across the Baltic Sea to export power produced from a newly to be built nuclear power plant. The cable would be laid alongside the last part of the gas pipeline Nordstream that Gazprom is building together with western partners and that will be used to transport gas direct from Russia to Germany across the Baltic Sea. The electricity cable would similarly bypass third countries, in this case Poland. A representative from the German Ministry of Economic Affairs says he does not expect Germany to be willing to acquiesce to the plan. ‘I cannot imagine that the German public will want to import nuclear power (“Atomstrom”) from Russia’, he says.

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German president gets indecent proposal

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Controversial German writer and television presenter Charlotte Roche has offered to have sex with German president Christian Wulff if he blocks legislation to extend the operating lives of the country's nuclear power plants. In an interview with Der Spiegel magazine, the 32-year-old anti-nuclear activist said: "I am offering to sleep with him if he does not sign the legislation."
She added, "My husband agrees. Now it is up to the First Lady to give her consent."

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