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"Areva SA, the French nuclear-reactor builder, took a new provision for cost overruns at a plant it's building in Finland, leaving the door open for more charges as the project is still 2 1/2 years away from completion. The company said yesterday it will book a charge of about 400 million euros ($491 million) in the first half as Finnish customer Teollisuuden Voima Oyj said this month the OL3 plant will start nuclear operations at the end of 2012 rather than by a previous June 2012 deadline. Areva "has now installed the reactor pressure vessel and continues work on piping, but history suggests further delays are very likely," Alex Barnett, an analyst at Jefferies International Ltd., who recommends buying Areva investment certificates, said in a research note today. The new charge takes total provisions for cost overruns to about 2.7 billion euros for the first-of-its-kind project, which Areva pledged in 2005 to build for 3 billion euros and complete in 2009."

"* Nuclear producers say might study legal ways to fight tax * Eye energy plan in August for new line on life extensions German utilities said on Thursday they might sue the government over a planned tax on nuclear power production after a meeting in Berlin on Wednesday failed to appease them. "We will look into possible legal steps if the tax is imposed without any compensation," a spokesman for E.ON (EONGn.DE) said. A spokesman for RWE (RWEG.DE) said it would consider legal steps, once the tax plan became more concrete, not least because stock market regulations would oblige the company to do so. "But, currently, it does not make sense to issue threats as the plans have not been spelled out in detail," he said."

"Britain's lights will stay on even without new nuclear power plants replacing the ageing reactors which are set to close in the next few years, energy secretary Chris Huhne said on Thursday. UK Reiterating that the government will not block new nuclear builds, Huhne said that nuclear's contribution to power generation could fall below the current 20 percent level with no risk of an energy gap if there was sufficient investment in other sources. "If we set the right framework for low carbon generation, then the market will deliver enough with the right mix. If that includes nuclear, that's envisaged in the coalition agreement, then that will be up to investors," Huhne added at the sidelines of the UK Energy Summit conference."

"You can take the girl out of Suffolk but you can't take Suffolk out of the girl. Stories inspired by her home county have been floating around former Look East broadcaster Boni Sones's head for years. Now she's sharing them. She spoke to Steven Russell BONI Sones was eight when the bulldozers and cranes came. They changed forever the face of the coast and heathland where she played, scraping away more than 200 acres of scrub and grass to build a nuclear power station. Not that it put paid to youthful pursuits, for the construction site became an unofficial adventure zone for children from the tiny fishing hamlet of Sizewell and the scattered houses around. "As kids, we used to break into the site by burrowing under the fence and climbing the crane and so on. It was just an extension of our playground," she confesses of the early 1960s. Not surprisingly, the magnox reactors had a major impact on the lives of the communities in and around Leiston. "The power station definitely gave a sense of menace," says Boni. "If you think, as eight-year-olds, we were having to practise emergency evacuation procedures . . . It went from being an idyllic childhood to something that had menace in it. I used to think 'Where would we be safe, then, if it blew up?'""

"A NUCLEAR test veteran has described how he believes his battle for compensation from the Government may not be won in his lifetime. Former RAF serviceman Archie Ross, of Oak Close, Castle GresleyArchie Ross, of Oak Close, Castle Gresley, made the claim as an appeal by the Ministry of Defence, against a decision to allow compensation for more than 1,000 servicemen, continues. Mr Ross claims that exposure to radiation in 1950s nuclear tests, during his time as an RAF serviceman on Christmas Island, near Australia, has had a devastating effect on his health, his daughters and his grandson. But the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has rejected allegations of negligence and countered by saying that the claims for compensation are now out of date."

In the latest twist to the growing nuclear debate in Latin America, Uruguay accused Argentina of neglecting due process of consultation before going ahead with plans to build a new nuclear power station. The first hints of a developing row over Argentina's nuclear plans came nearly a month after Brazil unveiled plans to expand its uranium processing operations, possibly with sights set on export potential, and Venezuela's pledge to explore nuclear energy. Uruguay's open criticism of Argentina, conveyed indirectly through the media, came within a week of near resolution of a 5-year dispute between the two countries on an eucalyptus pulp mill near the shared Uruguay river."

"What if Deepwater Horizon was a nuclear plant? Extracting fossil fuels from ever-more-difficult environments is a dangerous business, a truth underlined spectacularly by the explosion at the Massey mine in April that killed 29 miners or the Deepwater Horizon spill that has left the Louisiana coast a blackened brackish mess. Not in decades has the nuclear option looked more attractive. Earlier this year, the government extended funding to build two new reactors at the Vogtle plant * in Georgia, likely the first reactors to go online since 1996, and a lot more may be in the works. Oil and coal disasters like Massey and Deepwater Horizon may be some of the best arguments for nuclear power."

"The lesson from Deepwater Horizon isn't that oil is bad and nuclear is good, says Mark Gimein in Slate, it's that, despite our best efforts, accidents happen Slate's Mark Gimein says the BP oil disaster demonstrates why we need to end our pursuit of nuclear power. On first glance, the BP oil spill seems like a good reason to push for more nuclear power, says Mark Gimein at Slate's The Big Money. Nuclear doesn't pollute the air, and it certainly doesn't "turn our beaches black." But, when you look deeper, the real lesson from the BP disaster is that "things go wrong, in unexpected ways, at unexpected times, to catastrophic effect," no matter how many levels of "failsafe" mechanisms we install. Which is why this disaster is a compelling argument against nuclear power. Imagine if Deepwater Horizon had been a nuclear reactor. Here, an excerpt:"

"Vermont Yankee nuclear plant officials say two new cracks have been found and repaired in a rebuilt tower that cools water from the plant. The cracks were found June 17,and were not publicly reported by the plant. The water cools the reactor, but it is not radioactive. The Rutland Herald says the cracks' existence came to light Tuesday during a meeting held by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Plant spokesman Larry Smith said yesterday the cracks in a 36-inch pipe were both about 12 to 15 inches long, and were spilling about 10 gallons of water a minute. He says the problem didn't meet the plant's threshold for public reporting. In August 2007, a different cooling tower at Vermont Yankee collapsed. "

"Mike Carlson was at his desk when he noticed his chair starting to move. The computer monitor on his desk at Central Vermont Public Service Corp. in Rutland shuddered, too, Wednesday afternoon moving from side to side, thanks to a magnitude-5.0 earthquake in Canada at abount 2:30 p.m. that shook a region stretching as far west as Michigan and into New England. Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in Vernon reported an "unusual event," the lowest of four levels of emergency classification. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan says the earthquake wasn't felt in the control room but was in other parts of the site. Yankee officials say there's no evidence of damage to the plant. Vermont Emergency Management spokesman Mark Bosma said no reports of damage have been reported. Advertisement "

"The state misidentified a town in a public announcement during a drill at the Salem nuclear power plant, the Office of Emergency Management said Thursday. The mistake and a delay in getting instructions out to the public mean the state will have to conduct a second drill in July. The drill tested the state's response to a nuclear disaster May 18. In a mock public notice, the state misidentified a town that was subject to a fish advisory, officials said. The state also took 62 minutes to make all the necessary preparations to direct the public to evacuate, take shelter or consume potassium iodide pills in response to the nuclear accident. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said the directions should have been issued within 45 to 50 minutes. Everything else in the biannual drill went smoothly, state officials said."

"Utah's radiation programs have new leaders. The new director of the Radiation Control Division is Rusty Lundberg, who has worked in the state's solid waste and sustainability programs. Lundberg replaces Dane Finerfrock, who has led radiation programs for the past seven years and retires at the month's end. "Rusty has excellent management and leadership skills," said Utah Department of Environmental Quality Director Amanda Smith, "and will do an outstanding job in the Division of Radiation Control." Lundberg has been with DEQ for 25 years, serving for more than 15 years as the branch manager overseeing solid waste for the Division of Solid and Hazardous Waste."

"- 10 regions had appealed for say on location of plants - Ruling gives central govt final say on siting Italy's top court on Wednesday rejected an appeal by 10 Italian regions to have a say on the location of any nuclear power plants built, judicial sources said. The ruling by the constitutional court, which had been championed by companies hoping to build the plants and opposed by environmental groups, effectively means the central government will have the final say on the site of the plants. Italy is the only Group of Eight industrialised nation without nuclear power, but the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi aims to relaunch it and have a quarter of all power in the country generated by nuclear plants in the future. Nuclear power was discontinued in Italy nearly 25 years ago after a referendum. Enel (ENEI.MI) and France's EDF (EDF.PA) would like to start building four nuclear power stations in Italy in 2013. Public opinion in Italy has been generally hostile to nuclear energy and local authorities had demanded a say in their approval."

"The latest progress report from UK nuclear safety regulators has made the best-case completion of the Generic Design Assessment process seem unlikely. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said detailed examination of the Areva EPR and Westinghouse AP1000 was well underway and making reasonable progress with a rapidly increasing workrate. However, it is facing a deadline of June 2011 when it is meant to issue the most meaningful design acceptance certificates that it can for the reactors. While most plant systems and features have posed no substantial problem, there remain some that could potentially have to be dealt with under separate processes which extend the overall GDA effort beyond June 2011. As well as acceptance certificates, the HSE said it is planning to publish "a suite of progress reports" in June 2011 "together with the requesting parties' resolution plans for any outstanding issues relating to GDA." "

"A FRESH trawl of waters off Dounreay will get under way next month to recover more rogue radioactive fragments. A robot mounted on a bespoke subsea assembly is being mobilised to detect and then retrieve some of the hottest of the reactor fuel particles. The operation is part of Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd's attempt to tackle the legacy of radioactive pollution caused by sloppy historic waste practices at the site. A major part of its strategy is to target the seabed near the site's original sea effluent plant. This area - the size of 10 football pitches - is thought to contain the 1500 to 2000 particles deemed to pose a significant health hazard. Last year, a robot recovered 64 particles, including 13 in the significant category."

"Safety at the Dounreay nuclear plant continues to improve, according to the bosses of the company leading the clean-up of the Caithness complex. In their annual report, the directors of Dounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL) said no time was lost through accidents between March 2009-10. They said the low dosages of radiation workers were exposed to also underlined the priority given to safety. Two workers were exposed to radiation last July. "

"The United States studied a plan for a nuclear strike on North Korea in 1969 but advisers to then-president Richard Nixon concluded it was best to remain calm, declassified documents showed Wednesday. The documents, obtained by the National Security Archive at George Washington University, foreshadow present-day US frustration on how to handle Pyongyang following its nuclear tests and the sinking of a South Korean ship. In 1969, North Korea shot down a US spy aircraft over the Sea of Japan (East Sea), killing the 31 personnel on board."

"Some people in one Labrador community that could benefit from uranium mining are calling on the Inuit Nunatsiavut government of northern Labrador to end its three-year ban on uranium mining now. They say that since the ban was narrowly approved in 2008 the community has gone from boom town to ghost town. At the peak of exploration, the drone of helicopters and float planes continued from dawn to dusk. "All we can hear now is the wind and the songbirds," said Glen Sheppard, a member of the Nunatsiavut Assembly representing Postville. "If it weren't for the number of homes around, you'd think you're at your [summer] cabin." Sheppard said that since the moratorium almost half the town's residents have become unemployed and that 75 per cent of the people in the community want the moratorium lifted early."

"The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) underwent an overhaul at a meeting last week in Accra, Ghana. Transformative changes reflect global developments that have occurred since the partnership was established in 2007, and include a new name-the International Framework for Nuclear Energy Cooperation-and a new mission statement. The partnership started out as a U.S.-led initiative under President George W. Bush in 2006, seeking to improve the proliferation-resistance of the nuclear fuel cycle while guaranteeing access to fuel supplies through both political and technological initiatives. But last year, after 14 hearings and 15,000 comments, the U.S. Department of Energy reportedly pulled the plug on domestic involvement in the partnership. A DOE spokesperson was quoted as saying that the nation's "long-term fuel cycle research and development program will continue but not the near-term deployment of recycling facilities or fast reactors." The spokesman noted that the international component of GNEP was under interagency review. "

"With regard to our energy independence, the BP oil disaster should be a call to action. Everyone knows we are dependent on fossil fuels coming from foreign sources yet; no one to date has the will to do anything serious and credible about it. Nuclear energy is the Holy Grail of clean, safe and affordable energy that America can produce and exploit without detriment to the environment. I recently had the pleasure of meeting Glen L. Mc Cullough, Jr., the former chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Glen wrote a terrific paper entitled, "Five Smart Energy Steps for America." This is what Glen said with regard to nuclear power:"