United Kingdom

French nuclear vendor Areva says UK nuclear relaunch 'essential'

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

French nuclear vendor Areva says UK nuclear relaunch 'essential'

London (Platts)--6 Sep 2007

French nuclear vendor Areva NP says that the revival of a nuclear power program in the UK is "absolutely essential."

CEO Luc Oursel, speaking at a conference in London Thursday, said that the UK would be the first in Europe to relaunch on a large scale a nuclear power effort. Therefore, he said, it has to be successful.

Success in the UK could lead other European countries planning to exit nuclear power to reconsider their plans.

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Public doubts over nuclear power persist

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Public doubts over nuclear power persist
By Rebecca Bream

Published: September 10 2007 04:03 | Last updated: September 10 2007 04:03

Serious misgivings about nuclear power remain as well as concerns over the role of private sector operators in the industry according to the largest ever public consultation to be held in the UK.

A sample of 1,000 people in nine cities were asked to give their views on whether the government should give the green light to a new generation of nuclear power stations in a series of workshops on Saturday.

The day was hailed by ministers as a victory for the democratic process and a reflection of prime minister Gordon Brown’s push to involve a wider range of people in policy-making.

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No new nuclear plants likely before 2020

Monday, September 3, 2007

Reuters Mon 20 Aug 2007

A cyclist travels away from Sizewell A and B power stations in Suffolk, Britain May 22, 2007.

No new nuclear plants likely before 2020

By Daniel Fineren

LONDON (Reuters) - No nuclear power plants are likely to be built in Britain before 2020, if they are built at all, which will be too late to fill the country's looming power generation gap, according to a report published on Monday.

The government wants the private sector to build new nuclear power plants to replace the country's ageing reactors and plug a generation shortfall left by the closure of coal-fired power plants under European environment laws.

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The UK’s Oldbury-2 reconnects to grid

Thursday, August 30, 2007

London (Platts)–24Aug2007The UK’s Oldbury-2 magnox reconnected to the grid August 23, operatorMagnox North said August 24. A fire and then turbine vibrations kept thereactor offline most of the time since May 30. Oldbury-2, one of the fourremaining operating magnox reactors, underwent a 23-month outage until May 27to determine the extent of graphite depletion in its core. It operated onlythree days before a May 30 fire on the non-nuclear side of the plant forcedits shutdown.

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Energy boost

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Number 10 has finally pressed the button. By the end of today, the government should have offloaded a large chunk of its holding in British Energy, the UK's big nuclear generator. This stands to increase the company's free-float by about three-quarters, hence the 6 per cent drop in British Energy's share price yesterday. But the shares could easily have fallen further - were it not for the clever timing of the sale.

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The Perils of Pushing Atomic Energy as the Climate Change Panacea

Thursday, May 10, 2007

By Philip Bethge (Der Spiegel)

Is nuclear power on the verge of a renaissance? Its supporters argue that atomic energy is the only way to satisfy humanity’s hunger for more energy without aggravating the effects of global warming. Critics, however, regard the nuclear hype as over-simplistic optimism fueled by an industry in distress.

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Power market developments: waste fund call

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Nuclear Engineering International - The International Energy Agency's review of the UK energy industry has called for a nuclear waste and decommissioning fund to be set up.

The International Energy Agency's (IEA's) recently published The United Kingdom 2006 Review, the second of its Energy Policies of IEA Countries series, praised the UK energy market framework but highlighted the need for a nuclear waste policy, covering all types of waste, and called for the establishment of a liabilities fund to pay for decommissioning and waste disposal.

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Nuclear energy set to dominate G8 summit

Monday, March 13, 2006

Paris, March 13, 2006 - Nuclear power will dominate the first G8 energy summit in Moscow next week.

The rising price of fossil fuels, combined with concerns about the greenhouse effect and the demands of the Kyoto agreement ha s meant industrialised nations are having to reconsider how they source their energy supplies. Most countries regard nuclear energy as the solution to environmental concerns and dwindling fossil fuel supplies.

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Watchdog examines nuclear alert at Torness

Saturday, December 24, 2005

By Michael Harrison, Business Editor
Saturday, 24 December 2005

An inquiry was under way last night at the Torness nuclear power station in Scotland after an incident involving fuel rods in one of its reactors.

Anti-nuclear campaigners said the incident was just the latest in a series of problems at the British Energy-owned site and called for the investigation to be wide ranging.

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Italy 'to export nuclear waste to UK'

Wednesday, January 5, 2005

Italy is hoping to export 99% of its nuclear waste to the UK after public demonstrations made it impossible to find a suitable site on Italian soil.

The Italian government has 235 tonnes of spent fuel from the country's long decommissioned reactors in deteriorating stores.

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