World’s oldest nuclear reactor comes back online

The primary reactor at Switzerland’s Beznau nuclear power plant, the world’s oldest commercial nuclear plant, has reopened after three years of repairs, despite protests from environmental campaigners, a statement said on Tuesday. Beznau, located in the northern Swiss canton of Aargau near the German border, has two reactors and first opened in 1969. Both reactors were …

Rosatom Still Committed to 2023 Startup for Turkey’s First Nuclear Plant

Rosatom in a March 21 statement said changes to the ownership group involved with Turkey’s first nuclear power plant should not further delay construction of the facility, which has struggled with setbacks since the Russian nuclear corporation was awarded the construction contract in 2010. The Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant (Figure 1) is a planned 4,800-MW …

Belarusian nuclear power plant stress tests peer review report to be released in July

A number of European experts have visited Belarus as part of the peer review of results of stress tests of the Belarusian nuclear power plant. The peer review final report will be made available to the general public in July 2018, the press service of the Belarusian Emergencies Ministry told BelTA. The authorized European experts …

Finland’s Hanhikivi 1 reactor on track, unaffected by sanctions

A planned nuclear reactor in western Finland, owned by a Finnish-Russian consortium, will meet its 2024 commissioning target despite delays in licensing, and will not be affected by sanctions on Russia, supplier Rosatom said. The start date of the 1.2 gigawatt (GW) Hanhikivi 1 reactor has been in question since September, when owner Fennovoima said …

China Plans to Build Multiple Nuclear Reactors in 2018

China’s plan to focus on nuclear power will include constructing six to eight new reactors and bringing five reactors online in 2018, the National Energy Administration (NEA) announced last week. With this plan in place, the country will raise its total nuclear-generating capacity by as much as 6 gigawatts. In its Energy Work Guidance Opinion for 2018, …

Czech business boss says PM’s position on new nuclear reactors is ‘fiction’

The head of the Czech Chamber of Commerce has hit out at current prime minister Andrej Babiš for his stance that state dominated utility ČEZ should be able to build new nuclear reactors on its own without any help. Chamber president Vladimír Dlouhý, speaking at an energy conference in Prague, said such a position was …