Tag: France

French nuclear giant scraps SMR plans due to soaring costs, will start over

GILES PARKINSON – The federal Coalition has argued that nuclear might be expensive to build, but will deliver cheaper power to consumers. It has not explained how, but it has said that its reactors would be government owned, suggesting that – like France and Ontario – the costs would be borne by taxpayers and the supply of power to customers would be heavily subsidized.

Human rights violated by Swiss inaction on climate, ECHR rules in landmark case

AJIT NIRANJAN – Court finds in favour of group of older Swiss women who claimed weak policies put them at greater risk of death from heatwaves. In a landmark decision on one of three major climate cases, the first such rulings by an international court, the ECHR raised judicial pressure on governments to stop filling the atmosphere with gases that make extreme weather more violent.

‘Hundreds of problems’ at EU nuclear plants

BBC NEWS – Hundreds of problems have been found at European nuclear plants that would cost 25bn euros (£20bn) to fix, says a leaked draft report. The report, commissioned after Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster, aimed to see how Europe’s nuclear power stations would cope during extreme emergencies. The final report was to be published last Thursday. The draft says nearly all the EU’s 143 nuclear plants need improving.

Withdrawal Issues: What NATO Countries Say About the Future of Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Europe

SUSI SNYDER and WILBERT VAN DER ZEIJDEN – For decades, the U.S. has deployed nuclear weapons on the territories of NATO allies in Europe. Now, about 200 of these weapons remain – in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey. The weapons were originally intended to be used to put up a wall of radiation to block a ground invasion from the Warsaw Pact. Their type and numbers were greatly reduced at the end of the Cold War, but they have not been completely eliminated. Yet.