Lithuania

A chill wind blows across the Baltics from Warsaw

Monday, December 10, 2007

The thaw between Poland and Brussels has sent a chill down spines in Lithuania.

Donald Tusk, the new Polish premier, arrived at the European Commission and parliament on Tuesday to show that his country was back in the centre of Europe. The era of the Kaczynskis, “the terrible twins”, picking fights with Brussels, was over.

The fear in Vilnius is that he may stop picking fights with Russia, too, leaving the Baltic republics, which only recently threw off the Soviet yoke, alone in the ring with the bear. Talks on resolving the Russian blockade of Polish meat, which in turn have held up a new EU-Russia partnership agreement to Brussels' ill-concealed annoyance, start next week.

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EU's Piebalgs says sufficient power in Lithuania when Ignalina closes

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

BRUSSELS (AFX News) - EU energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs said there will be sufficient power in Lithuania when its Ingalina nuclear power station's second unit is shut down at the end of 2009.

'At the end of 2009 (when the plant closes), the power gap will not cut Lithuanian consumers' power,' the commissioner told reporters here.

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Lithuania nuclear chief sees delay to new plant

Friday, November 30, 2007

VISAGINAS, Lithuania, Nov 29 (Reuters) - A planned new Lithuanian nuclear plant faces a delay of at least two years to 2017, the head of the country's current sole atomic power facility said on Thursday. Viktor Shevaldin, head of the Ignalina nuclear plant, due to be shut down at the end of 2009 under Lithuania's European Union entry terms, said several uncertainties remained about the planning and eventual construction of a new plant.

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Lithuania still sees new nuclear plant in 2015 -PM

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Reuters - By Nerijus Adomaitis and Patrick Lannin
VILNIUS, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas believes Lithuania can still build a new nuclear power plant by 2015 but uncertainties over the timetable and capacity remain, he said on Monday.

The project, led by Lithuania and involving Latvia, Estonia and Poland, has already become bogged down by Warsaw's demand for one third of the new plant's output.

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Plan approved for environmental assessment for new Ignalina plant

Monday, November 19, 2007

Stockholm (Platts)--16Nov2007
A plan for preparing an environmental impact assessment for a new Ignalina nuclear plant has been approved by the Lithuanian Environment Ministry, national utility Lietuvos Energija said in a statement November 15.
The 255-page plan was developed by Finnish consulting company Poeyry Energy and the Lithuania Energy Institute. The assessment, for a plant with up to 3,400 MW of installed capacity, is expected to take 21 months.

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Lithuania's Ignalina nuclear plant shut down after emergency system triggered

Thursday, November 15, 2007

VILNIUS, Lithuania (Thomson Financial) - Lithuania's Soviet-era Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (INPP) said its number two unit was shut down yesterday at 5.20 pm after a technical problem triggered the automatic protection system.

The plant, which uses the same reactors as Ukraine's Chernobyl plant, will remain offline for at least three days.

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Nuclear causes ripples in new member states

Monday, October 22, 2007

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Nuclear causes ripples in new member states
ENDS Europe DAILY 2412, 19/10/07
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The Czech Green party has threatened to bring down the coalition
government in which it is a junior partner if members of the majority
ODS party support amendments to an energy law that would shift
ultimate power over decisions on possible new nuclear plants from the
government to the parliament.

The Greens said this week that any support from government MEPs for
changes tabled by the opposition for a vote next week would be
tantamount to breaking a coal

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Lithuania spends eur 51.2 mln on projects to decommission 1st unit of ignalina n-plant so far

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Lithuania has already spent 51.2 million euros on projects aimed at decommissioning the first unit of Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (INPP) closed late in 2004. Direct European Union (EU) support for the projects made up some 29 million euros in two years.

The overall amount excludes the support extended by the Ignalina International Decommissioning Support Fund (IIDSF), administered by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which funds the decommissioning projects independently via direct payments to contractors or suppliers.

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Lithuanian power plant invites bids to build new unit

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Lithuania's state-controlled Lietuvos Elektrine (Lithuanian Power Plant, or LPP) has invited international bids to design and build a new combined cycle gas turbine plant (CCGT) with a capacity of 350 to 450 megawatts (MW), the Economy Ministry said on Wednesday.

The project, worth an estimated 720 million litas (EUR 209 mln), is part of ongoing upgrades at the LPP, which will become the main generator of electricity in Lithuania after the shutdown of the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (INPP) in 2009. The CCGT project will be financed from the Ignalina International Decommissioning Support Fund, which is administered by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and other resources, the ministry said. The new plant will produce electricity at around half the cost of power generated by the existing units of the LPP.

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Estonia eyes Finnish nuclear plant

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

TALLINN - Top government and energy officials have reiterated Estonia's desire to own a stake in a nuclear power plant that may be built in Finland over the next decade. Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said on Sept. 11 that the Baltic state was interested in the nuclear project which, if built, would be Finland's sixth nuclear power plant.

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