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France's two biggest energy groups, EDF and GDF Suez, are vying to build the country's latest nuclear power plant, casting fresh doubt on their participation in Britain's planned nuclear renaissance. Last week President Nicolas Sarkozy gave the go-ahead for a second new-generation European pressurised reactor (EPR) on an existing site. It will be France's 60th nuclear power plant.

PARIS, June 13 (Reuters) - The French government is considering building a second new generation nuclear power station, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said late on Thursday.

The political climate and external conditions for new nuclear power plants may be more favorable now than at any time in the past several decades, but problems with a plant now under construction and the global financial crisis could deal the industry a setback, University of Greenwich Professor Stephen Thomas said Wednesday. The current nuclear renaissance has much greater government backing than previous prospective nuclear revivals and the external factors, such as volatile fossil fuel prices, the need to act on climate change and the geopolitical situation are as favorable as they are likely to get [for new nuclear], Thomas said Wednesday in a paper released at a conference in Washington. But Thomas and co-author David Hall wrote that the Areva EPR reactor being built for Finland utility TVO remains "the marker for the industry."

Outreach effort ramping up from impulse power to warp drive Areva logoNote to public relations consultants to major nuclear reactor vendors, Areva, the world's largest integrated firm across the entire nuclear fuel cycle, thinks the blogsphere is worth its time in terms of dialog. The French nuclear giant has an initiative underway in which company officials hold monthly conference calls with nuclear energy bloggers. During the hour-long call, bloggers get to ask some tough questions. For their part, Areva is working to emerge from a traditional corporate communications strategy of walking softly and not saying very much to the press, much less to bloggers. Wide ranging topics for discussion In the conference call held this past Friday, May 8, the fifth in the series, the firm fielded questions about the facts behind a hostile article published in the Economist May 7, the status of the MOX fuel plant under construction in South Carolina, and next steps at Calvert Cliffs III which was short-listed for federal loan guarantees and got a green light this week from the Maryland PUC. The project to build the first 1,600 MW EPR reactor in the US is scheduled to break ground in 2011 and enter revenue service in 2015.

AmerenUE has asked the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend its review of the company's July 2008 application for a combined construction permit-operating license to build a new nuclear unit at its Callaway plant in Missouri. In a June 23 letter to NRC released on Friday, Adam Heflin, senior vice president and chief nuclear officer, said "we have determined that it is in AmerenUE's best interests to suspend the review" of the COL application and requested "that the NRC staff suspend all activities" related to the review. AmerenUE announced in April that it was dropping plans to build a 1,600-MW Areva US-EPR reactor at Callaway because the company did not think Missouri state lawmakers would be able to overturn the state's ban on recovering costs on construction work in progress. AmerenUE spokesman Mike Cleary said June 26 that NRC's review of the COL continued after that decision while AmerenUE "looked at its options," but it is now deemed "prudent" to suspend the review.

A labor agreement for the potential construction of a new nuclear unit at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in Maryland was signed with Bechtel Construction Co., the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department, or BCTD, said June 1. Bechtel and the BCTD said in April 2008 that they were negotiating a labor agreement to lay out the terms for wages, benefits, work hours and working conditions for skilled craft workers on UniStar Nuclear Energy's planned Calvert Cliffs-3 project. UniStar, a joint venture of Constellation Energy and EDF Group, wants to build a fleet of Areva US-EPRs in the US, beginning with a new unit at its two-reactor Calvert Cliffs site.

Greenpeace is calling for the construction permit for the Olkiluoto European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) in Finland - the world's largest prototype nuclear reactor - to be cancelled, following revelations of severe problems in the design of its electronic safety control systems. The call comes after a Finnish TV current affairs program broadcast details yesterday evening of a leaked letter from Finnish nuclear regulator STUK to Areva, the French constructor of the Olkiluoto 3 plant. The letter warns of a lack of 'real progress' in the 'design of control protection systems', which could lead to a halt in further construction work.1

A nuclear reactor being built in Finland to the same design expected to be used in Britain is running three years behind schedule. Its developers, Areva, the French nuclear energy group, and Siemens, of Germany, had hoped it would start generating electricity yesterday. The reactor, in Olkiluoto, western Finland, is set to be the world's most powerful nuclear reactor, with a generating capacity of 1,600 megawatts - enough to power a city of 1.6 million people, or nearly one third of Finland's 5.5 million population. However, it is running three years late and is vastly over budget, beset by design delays, water-logged concrete and faulty pipes. EDF, the French state-owned energy group, has said that it will build at least four of the so-called EPR reactors - a new design - in the UK. The first, expected to be at Hinkley Point in Somerset, is slated to enter service in 2017 to help to plug a looming gap in Britain's energy supplies.

"- Areva SA, the world's biggest reactor builder, said the successful execution of the U.S. nuclear-loan guarantee program and the ability of companies to deliver on time and on cost will lead to an "enormous" market. Southern Co. and its partners received $8.33 billion of federal conditional loan guarantees earlier this week to build the first nuclear reactors in the U.S. in three decades. Jacques Besnainou, chief executive officer of Areva's U.S. unit, is in the process of licensing its EPR nuclear-generator design, which is also a candidate for U.S. financial support. "For me, they are not competitors, we are competi-mates," Besnainou said about nuclear-plant builders in an interview in Bethesda, Maryland, yesterday. "What Wall Street needs to see, and Main Street as well, is that we are able to build on time, on budget." "

"Are we being too sanguine about the safety of new nuclear power stations likely to be built in Britain? The new reactors have been thought to be much less hazardous than their predecessors, largely because they have more safety features and produce less waste. But there is increasing evidence that the new European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) may pose particular problems of its own, and EDF wants to build four in Britain. Information buried deep in nuclear industry documents has already revealed that they produce up to eleven times as much of radioactive isotopes - like caesium 135 and 137 - that could be rapidly released in an accident than do present-day reactors. This would not matter too much if accidents were very much less likely to happen, but that is now being called into question."

"AREVA and Fresno Nuclear Energy Group (FNEG) today announced that they have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to develop a Clean Energy Park near Fresno, California, including nuclear and renewable generation. According to the MOU, AREVA and FNEG will work together on the site selection and initial development of a nominal 1,600 Megawatt U.S. EPR™ reactor. The agreement also includes potential development of other AREVA energy technologies such as concentrated solar power. "Our goal is to create a power-producing infrastructure that combines clean electric energy sources, including nuclear, solar, and future technologies," said John Hutson, president of FNEG."

Amid signs that nuclear power is on the verge of a renaissance are the voices of opponents of the technology who say the industry remains secretive and irresponsible - particularly about highly radioactive waste. The latest salvo against it is from the anti-nuclear environmental group Greenpeace. Greenpeace issued warnings and links to scientific documents on Friday to The International Herald Tribune and on Saturday more widely that claimed that waste from one of the most prominently marketed next-generation reactors will be seven times as radioactive as waste from the current generation of reactors.

As France presses ahead with building more next-generation nuclear reactors, new evidence emerged Friday to suggest that industry and governments may be unprepared to handle the increasingly toxic waste that will result. Highlighting the importance of the technology in France, both as its main source of electricity and as a major export industry, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France announced late Thursday that Électricité de France, Europe's biggest power producer, was awarded the contract to develop a second atomic reactor using next-generation technology.

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.

Calling it the "beginning of the beginning," Duke Energy chairman, president and CEO James Rogers Thursday officially kicked off the effort to bring 400 to 700 new permanent jobs to Piketon within roughly the next decade. Advertisement The process will be pursued by a newly created partnership whose aim is to construct a new nuclear power facility in Piketon. And while it will take a considerable amount of time to complete, officials are hopeful it will lead the way to new life in a county that is presently facing 15.1 percent unemployment and routinely ranks among the highest jobless rates in the state. "It will, I think, help revitalize the economy of this part of the state," Gov. Ted Strickland said, adding that the project would make Ohio the only state including next-generation nuclear power production in its energy portfolio.

"The deal between French firm Areva and California investors faces regulatory hurdles. Early plans call for building at least one 1,600-megawatt plant using European pressurized reactor technology. Reporting from Sacramento - A French company and a group of Central Valley investors announced Tuesday that they had signed a letter of intent to build one or two nuclear power plants near Fresno. The agreement with Areva, a Paris nuclear engineering firm, is expected to be finalized in March, said John Hutson, chief executive of the Fresno Nuclear Energy Group, a partnership of local business executives and farmers. Once that's done, the two potential partners would begin a site selection and evaluation process that could take as long as two years, he said. Environmentalists were skeptical that the agreement would go anywhere. They point out that California has a 3-decade-old law that bans the construction of nuclear power plants unless the state can certify that the federal government has come up with a plan for the permanent storage of spent nuclear fuel, which is highly radioactive. No such facility exists in the country, and plans to open one at Yucca Mountain in Nevada have been put on hold by the Obama administration. The California ban doesn't trouble the California investors. "The law is archaic and will fall by the wayside on its own, in our opinion," Hutson said. Early plans call for building one or two 1,600-megawatt power plants using European pressurized reactor technology. The cost is expected to range between $5 billion and $8 billion, Hutson said. He said no financing had been secured at this stage of the project."

A Maryland agency has given a key approval to a deal between two companies that hope to build an Areva-designed nuclear reactor. The approval lets Electricite de France buy about half of Constellation Energy Group's nuclear business, seen as an important step in the two companies' plans to build new nuclear reactors. The two companies partnered two years ago to form UniStar Nuclear Energy, a joint venture. UniStar has been working to promote the construction of Evolutionary Power Reactors in the U.S.

A Maryland agency has given a key approval to a deal between two companies that hope to build an Areva-designed nuclear reactor. The approval lets Electricite de France buy about half of Constellation Energy Group's nuclear business, seen as an important step in the two companies' plans to build new nuclear reactors. The two companies partnered two years ago to form UniStar Nuclear Energy, a joint venture. UniStar has been working to promote the construction of Evolutionary Power Reactors in the U.S.