Areva loses a bundle in 2012

France's state-controlled nuclear engineering giant Areva lost $130 million in 2012 and its business is struggling to move past the Japan's nuclear disaster and a troubled mining venture. The company lost (EURO)2.5 billion in 2011, a year that saw many countries rethink their use of the nuclear energy after the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the Fukushima power plant. Much of those losses were due to a troubled uranium mining venture that was the subject of investigation.

EPR: Four years behind, at least, and now even MORE over-budget

Source: CRILAN, an activist group in Normandy working to stop the EPR reactor at Flamanville and elsewhere and the construction of high-tension transmission line corridors. (CRILAN also serves as the global expert and watchdog on the La Hague reprocessing facility).

✔ 1.8 billion euros in 1998 when EdF envisaged building an EPR at Carnet, near Nantes, according to M. Ayrault. 

✔  3 billion euros in 2003, announced at a presentation in Rennes by the Minister of Industry.

✔  3.3 billion euros during the “Public Debate” organized after the decision to build the reactor on EDF land at Flamanville, from where the very long high-tension lines to reach the Loire Country, are also costly. 

✔ 6 billion euros in 2011 when, citing inside sources, CRILAN affirmed the the cost would be at least 8 billion euros. 

✔ Today, 8.5 billion euros! And the enormous cost over-run is not, as the company claims, only due to the make-good payments because of faulty subcontracting and post-Fukushima measures.   

How much in 2016 ? How much will we need to pay per kWh for electricity produced by this type of reactor? Three times more than anticipated? 

We still do not know, despite our repeated demands to the Local Commission on Information,what type of fuel will be used in the EPR! MOX, or more enriched uranium with cladding “doped” with chromium, or traditional uranium like at OLKILUITO ?

Areva moves to wind energy as nuclear continues to slide

From Reuters: French nuclear power engineering giant Areva is planning to set up an offshore wind turbine factory in the east of Scotland, which could create 750 jobs, the group said on Monday.

Areva plans to invest "several 10s of million euros", Chief Executive Luc Oursel said at a news conference, and the plant for Areva's 5 megawatt turbines should be up and running in 2015 or 2016, he said.

"Areva has chosen to locate its future facility in east Scotland to optimise logistics costs for UK projects and to benefit from a growing cluster of offshore supply chain businesses in the area," Areva said in a statement earlier.

A memorandum of understanding was signed by Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond during a visit to Paris, the state-owned group said.

The Scottish site, which has yet to be identified, will be Areva's third European site for offshore turbines, alongside a future plant in Le Havre in northern France and Germany's existing Bremerhaven factory. 

Radioactive leak at Flamanville reactor in France

The EDF-owended Flamanville 1 reactor on France's Normandy coast experienced a radioactive leak late on October 24th. Although downplayed by the French nuclear authority, a French watchdog group based near Flamanville received direct reports from workers, who described a very close call that almost cost three plant workers their lives. The unit had been shut down since the end of July for refueling. Around 42,000 liters of 300°C radioactive water escaped from a primary cooling circuit, contaminating the reactor building. Flamanville has two operating reactors, with the third, an EPR design, still under construction but way behind schedule and over budget.

"The Rust-Bucket Reactors Start to Fall"

Harvey WassermanHarvey Wasserman, editor of Nukefree.org and author of Solartopia, has written a blog inspired by the announced closure of the Kewaunee atomic reactor in Wisconsin. He begins by stating 'The US fleet of 104 deteriorating atomic reactors is starting to fall. The much-hyped "nuclear renaissance" is now definitively headed in reverse.'

He points out that Kewaunee may be but the first domino to fall, describing the impact of "low gas prices, declining performance, unsolved technical problems and escalating public resistance" at numerous other old, age-degraded, troubled reactors across the U.S. But Harvey also points out the momentum applies as well as overseas, in the wake of Fukushima, not only in Japan, but also India, and even Europe, led by Germany's nuclear power phase out.

Referring to the new French Areva "European Pressurized Reactors" (or EPRs), under construction in Europe and proposed in the U.S., Harvey writes that "projected cost estimates for new reactors soar out of control---here [in the U.S.], in Finland, France and elsewhere."

He adds "A proposed French-financed reactor for Maryland has been cancelled thanks to a powerful grassroots campaign. Any other new reactor projects will face public opposition and economic pitfalls at least as powerful."

Harvey, a senior advisor to Greenpeace USA and Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), will address "From Fukushima to Fermi-3: Getting to Solartopia Before It's Too Late" in Dearborn, MI on Dec. 7th at the official launch event for the new organization, the Alliance to Halt Fermi-3.