nuclear-news

France’s nuclear industry: AREVA and EDF locked in dispute

Bitter row throws French nuclear industry into turmoil Times Online January 18, 2010 Adam Sage, Paris

The French nuclear industry is in turmoil as uranium supplies have dried up and the treatment of spent fuel has been blocked amid an increasingly bitter row between the heads of its two main state operators.

EDF, the electricity group that runs 58 reactors in France, said that Areva, the nuclear energy group, had stopped uranium deliveries on January 4 and was refusing to take away spent fuel for reprocessing.

”The transport of combustibles isn’t working at the moment,” Anne Lauvergeon, the chairwoman of Areva, said.

As a result, used fuel is remaining at EDF sites instead of being reprocessed at La Hague treatment plant in northern France.

Mrs Lauvergeon blamed a breakdown in talks over a new €800 million contract with EDF to process spent fuel.

”We’ve been talking for too long,’ she said, calling on President Sarkozy’s Government to resolve the dispute.

Bitter row throws French nuclear industry into turmoil – Times Online

January 19, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, climate change, France | antinuclear, France, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear secrecy, nuclear spin