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Safety concerns may halt construction of a new nuclear facility in Finland, posing questions about the viability of the next generation of European Pressurised Reactors destined for the UK Finland's nuclear regulatory body may halt construction of the country's new European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) amid 'great concern' over key safety systems. The concerns will be echoed in the UK, where the Government hopes to have the first of four new EPRs built by 2017. A major selling point of the new generation nuclear reactors had been their safety systems, a vital consideration as they will produce more radiation than current reactors. Doubts over the safety of Olkiluoto 3, being built on an island off western Finland, were raised by the director general of STUK, Finland's radiation and nuclear safety authority.

The Canadian government on Thursday moved to get out of the nuclear energy business, inviting bids for its commercial reactor division amid heady global demand for atomic energy. "Nuclear energy is an emission-free source of power that is experiencing a renaissance around the world," said Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt in a statement. Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL)'s CANDU reactor division "needs strategic investors to take full advantage of this opportunity, strengthen its global presence and reduce the financial risks carried by taxpayers." Proposals are to be assessed based on the buyer's ability to grow the division's domestic and foreign reactor sales, helping to retain some 30,000 Canadian jobs in the sector.

The Canadian government on Thursday moved to get out of the nuclear energy business, inviting bids for its commercial reactor division amid heady global demand for atomic energy. "Nuclear energy is an emission-free source of power that is experiencing a renaissance around the world," said Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt in a statement. Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL)'s CANDU reactor division "needs strategic investors to take full advantage of this opportunity, strengthen its global presence and reduce the financial risks carried by taxpayers." Proposals are to be assessed based on the buyer's ability to grow the division's domestic and foreign reactor sales, helping to retain some 30,000 Canadian jobs in the sector.

"State-controlled nuclear reactor maker Areva is considering producing cheaper nuclear reactors after its flagship EPR reactor lost out to a lower-cost South-Korean rival in a $20 billion tender in Abu Dhabi last month, the Financial Times reported on Friday. Top Areva management last week launched a review of its product range "to determine whether Areva should reintroduce the simpler second-generation CPR 1,000 reactors, which it stoppped building 20 years ago, for client countries that are new to nuclear power", the paper said."

Ukraine's president warned Monday on the 24th anniversary of the world's worst atomic accident that the Chernobyl nuclear reactor remains a serious threat to Europe. The 1986 reactor explosion sent a cloud of radiation over much of Europe and severe health problems persist. President Viktor Yanukovych says around 2 million people have illnesses caused by the radiation, and non-governmental organizations estimate the disaster has caused more than 700,000 early deaths. The exploded reactor is encased in a deteriorating shell and internationally funded work to replace it is far behind schedule. Yanukovych said during commemoration ceremonies Monday that the reactor is a threat "not only for Ukraine, but for Europe, Russia and Belarus.""

It is one of the mysteries of Japan's ongoing nuclear crisis: How much damage did the March 11 earthquake do to the Fukushima Daiichi reactors before the tsunami hit? The stakes are high: If the quake structurally compromised the plant and the safety of its nuclear fuel, then every other similar reactor in Japan will have to be reviewed and possibly shut down. With virtually all of Japan's 54 reactors either offline (35) or scheduled for shutdown by next April, the issue of structural safety looms over the decision to restart every one in the months and years after.

China has approved the construction of a new nuclear plant in its eastern coastal region, in the latest step in Beijing's plan to include more clean energy in the country's consumption mix. The State Council, or cabinet, issued a licence last week for the building of the first phase of the Haiyang nuclear power station in Shandong province, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission announced. Two reactors will be built initially, both using US-based Westinghouse Electric's AP 1000 third generation technology, the commission said in a statement posted on its website on Sunday. Each reactor will have a capacity of 1.25 gigawatts, the statement said. The reactors will be operational in May 2014 and March 2015, respectively.

China has approved the construction of a new nuclear plant in its eastern coastal region, in the latest step in Beijing's plan to include more clean energy in the country's consumption mix. The State Council, or cabinet, issued a licence last week for the building of the first phase of the Haiyang nuclear power station in Shandong province, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission announced. Two reactors will be built initially, both using US-based Westinghouse Electric's AP 1000 third generation technology, the commission said in a statement posted on its website on Sunday. Each reactor will have a capacity of 1.25 gigawatts, the statement said. The reactors will be operational in May 2014 and March 2015, respectively.

* New reactor design criticised by French politicians * Follows calls for modification by nuclear safety bodies * Shares close almost 4 percent down PARIS, Nov 3 (Reuters) - A new generation of French nuclear power reactors came under attack on Tuesday as opposition parties called for an inquiry into their security systems, after three nuclear safety bodies asked for changes to their design. In a rare joint statement, nuclear safety bodies in France, Britain and Finland on Monday ordered France's Areva (CEPFi.PA) and EDF (EDF.PA) to modify the safety features on its European Pressurised Reactors (EPR) due to insufficient independence between the day-to-day systems and the emergency systems. Opponents to nuclear power latched on to the news, with France's opposition socialist party calling for a parliamentary inquiry.

* New reactor design criticised by French politicians * Follows calls for modification by nuclear safety bodies * Shares close almost 4 percent down PARIS, Nov 3 (Reuters) - A new generation of French nuclear power reactors came under attack on Tuesday as opposition parties called for an inquiry into their security systems, after three nuclear safety bodies asked for changes to their design. In a rare joint statement, nuclear safety bodies in France, Britain and Finland on Monday ordered France's Areva (CEPFi.PA) and EDF (EDF.PA) to modify the safety features on its European Pressurised Reactors (EPR) due to insufficient independence between the day-to-day systems and the emergency systems. Opponents to nuclear power latched on to the news, with France's opposition socialist party calling for a parliamentary inquiry.

Encasing reactors at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant in concrete would present much more of a challenge than Chernobyl, according to an executive of the firm whose pumps are helping cooling efforts there. "In Chernobyl, where a single reactor was encased, 11 trucks were in action for a number of months. In Fukushima we're talking about four reactors," Gerald Karch, chief executive of the technical business of unlisted machinery maker Putzmeister, said in an interview with Reuters. He said that while no decision had been made in Japan, concrete encasing would be the most sensible solution once the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant has cooled down. "In my opinion, when a closed-circuit cooling system has been developed and successfully set up, there will be no other option but to encase the reactors in concrete," he said.

"A high radiation level of 1,120 millisieverts per hour was detected within the damaged No. 1 reactor building at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant when robots photographed the area on April 26, it has been learned. The level is the highest detected in the reactor building to date. The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), plans to fill the nuclear reactor containment vessel with water to contain radiation emissions, and is trying to cool down the reactor, but the high levels of radiation in the building are hampering work and are likely to cause difficulties for the company in achieving its goal of bringing the crisis at the plant under control within "six to nine months.""

"Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) likely failed in its attempt to vent the No. 1 reactor of its tsunami-hit Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant in mid-March shortly before a hydrogen explosion, despite its claim that it successfully vented the reactor, it has emerged. TEPCO insiders said the valves for venting the reactor did not sufficiently open, and TEPCO's headquarters admitted that it has not confirmed whether the valves opened. Experts have pointed out that data released by the utility suggests that one of the valves closed after it briefly opened. However, it still remains unclear whether the hydrogen explosion in the reactor building was caused by a venting failure, as experts say it is possible that hydrogen was accumulating even before the venting attempt."

"TEPCO: Melted fuel ate into containment vessel The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has announced the results of an analysis on the state of melted fuel in the plant's Number 1 unit. The Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, and several research institutes made public their analyses on the melting of fuel rods at 3 of the plant's units at a government-sponsored study meeting on Wednesday. The analyses were based on temperatures, amounts of cooling water and other data. TEPCO said that in the worse case, all fuel rods in the plant's Number 1 reactor may have melted and dropped through its bottom into a containment vessel. The bottom of the vessel is concrete covered with a steel plate. The utility said the fuel may have eroded the bottom to a depth of 65 centimeters. The thinnest part of the section is only 37 centimeters thick. TEPCO also said as much as 57 percent of the fuel in the plant's Number 2 reactor and 63 percent in the Number 3 reactor may have melted, and that some of the melted fuel may have fallen through reactor vessels. Wednesday, November 30, 2011 20:02 +0900 (JST)"

"The Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor was relaunched Tuesday after being suspended for four days for a scheduled checkup of data collected from the initial stage of operations following its restart nearly a month ago, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency said. The 280,000-kw reactor in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, restarted at 10:10 a.m. after staff pulled out control rods that had prevented nuclear reaction. The reactor resumed test operations May 6 following more than 14 years of suspension. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency will soon conduct two days of checks required for full operation of the reactor planned for 2013."

"The subtext of this little explanation from French nuclear giants AREVA is that it is using the people of Finland as guinea pigs in an experiment: Yes, we have faced challenges with the construction of the first EPR™ reactor, Olkiluoto 3 in Finland. AREVA will be the first to admit that this project is behind its ambitious original schedule and has been open about the entire process … This experience means that when AREVA begins construction of its next reactor, which we hope will be a U.S. EPR™ reactor in the United States, AREVA and its project teams will have completed several others internationally, giving us the experience, insight, and workforce to put us ahead of the game. Poor Finland, if only they'd waited a little longer, someone else would have been the test subject. As it is, France and China are also lined up for experimentation. Using the project management experience and incorporating lessons learned in Finland, AREVA's EPR™ reactors in France and China are on a much tighter schedule than their respective predecessors."

A radioactive spill has occurred at the aging Chalk River nuclear reactor west of the capital after the facility was recently cranked up to double its normal output of medical isotopes, used in diagnosing and treating cancer, Sun Media has learned. The reactor is supplying up to 70% of the world's medical isotopes, and a shutdown could leave millions of cancer and heart patients in Canada and around the globe without critical treatments. But the radioactive spill and another ongoing leak at the reactor are bound to spark renewed controversy over the safety of the nuclear facility built in 1958. An internal report to federal nuclear regulators shows radioactive tritium was released into the air during the incident at the Chalk River reactor on Dec. 5.

Chubu Electric Power Co.'s plan to decommission two long-suspended nuclear reactors and build a new reactor in their place at its Hamaoka power station is mainly due to the old reactors' deteriorating economic efficiency and the heavy cost expected for retrofitting the current facilities to meet the latest quake-resistance standards. The Hamaoka nuclear plant covers about 1.6 million square meters in Omaezaki, Shizuoka Prefecture, and is located near the potential epicenter for a major earthquake expected to strike the Tokai region someday. The power company completed retrofits of the station's Nos. 3, 4 and 5 reactors in March.

Russian engineers announced plans on building high-temperature nuclear reactor with gas cooling in our country by 2020. Existing atomic power plants are aimed at producing electricity and low-temperature heat for warming and water desalination. High-temperature reactors will expand plant workability. Temperatures about 1000 degrees Centigrade allow using heat in other field of economy, such as hydrogen synthesis, fertilizer production, metallurgical industry and etc. Moreover, high-temperature nuclear reactors do not leave radioactive wastes, thus solving many problems with environment and nuclear weapons.

The environmental organisation Greenpeace is accusing Boyygues, the company which is building the reactor building of the new nuclear facility in Olkiluoto, of serious security breaches in welding work. The reactor that is being built in the west coast community of Olkiluoto is the third to be built on the site, and the fifth in all of Finland.

On a day when Parliament passed a bill to restart the Chalk River nuclear reactor, the Harper government came under fire for allowing the reactor to shut down in the first place, causing a global shortage of medical isotopes used to diagnose cancer. Late yesterday, the Senate passed an emergency bill that would restart the reactor for 120 days so that Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL) can resume producing supplies of the highly sought isotopes. Health Minister Tony Clement said this means the reactor will be producing isotopes in roughly a week.

Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt is defending her government's decision to shelve the two Maple reactors, arguing that they wouldn't have prevented the global isotope crisis because they simply couldn't be brought online. "The reality is that the Maples would not have solved this problem today," she said in an interview with The Globe and Mail Thursday. But she said an expert panel on isotope alternatives will take a second look at the mothballed reactors because restarting the Maples is part of at least one of the 22 proposals submitted to the panel - that of medical technology company MDS Nordion, which is suing AECL over the decision not to bring the two reactors online. Medical isotopes are used in diagnostic tests.

A new report out today casts doubt on the ability of the nuclear industry to deliver its promised new reactors. French companies EDF and Areva, who are at the forefront of the new worldwide reactor design and building programme, have been making serious investments in foreign markets where they hope to build new reactors, including here in the UK. As a consequence they are heavily in debt. Today, EDF announced the issue of new bonds in an effort to raise fresh cash. With the outlook for new build looking increasingly uncertain, the future of both EDF and Areva is now also coming under scrutiny.

A new report out today casts doubt on the ability of the nuclear industry to deliver its promised new reactors. French companies EDF and Areva, who are at the forefront of the new worldwide reactor design and building programme, have been making serious investments in foreign markets where they hope to build new reactors, including here in the UK. As a consequence they are heavily in debt. Today, EDF announced the issue of new bonds in an effort to raise fresh cash. With the outlook for new build looking increasingly uncertain, the future of both EDF and Areva is now also coming under scrutiny.