Pressure rising on Europe's nuclear plant owners

Sun Apr 3, 2011 1:45pm GMT

* Some reactors likely to fail stress test - EU's Oettinger
* EU plans crackdown on low insurance costs - magazine
* Germany can do without nuclear power before 2020 -Greens

By Christiaan Hetzner

BERLIN, April 3 (Reuters) - Some of Europe's 143 nuclear reactors are likely to fail a test simulating terrorist attacks, an EU Commissioner said, and others will likely see insurance bills soar as politicians try to tighten regulations.

Following the nuclear crisis in Japan, caused by an earthquake and tsunami last month, the European Union is planning to carry out tests by the year end to assess whether its reactors could survive severe conditions.

The tests would simulate terrorist attacks either via cyberspace or an airplane crash and would focus on the reliability of reactor cooling systems, European Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger told German magazine Der Spiegel.

"If it was inconceivable that certain nuclear power plants would be taken off line, then we wouldn't need to even bother with the stress test," he was quoted as saying, disputing speculation the move was merely designed to play well to voters.

Nuclear power is extremely lucrative for utilities, which can earn as much as 1 million euros a day per reactor.

Any shutdowns would likely affect France, where state-owned utility EDF (EDF.PA: Quote) operates 58 reactors. These include two at Fessenheim, its oldest nuclear power plant right on the border to Germany and very close to Switzerland.

Following the catastrophe in Japan, the German government hastily postponed its decision to extend the life spans of the country's 17 reactors and took the seven oldest off-line pending a three-month safety check, prompting a lawsuit by utility RWE (RWEG.DE: Quote) on Friday.

Berlin previously agreed in September to keep the nuclear plants -- operated by RWE, E.ON (EONGn.DE: Quote), EnBW (EBKG.DE: Quote) and Vattenfall [VATN.UL] -- running 12 years longer on average than their original shutdown date.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, a physicist by training, told Bild am Sonntag the abrupt policy flip-flop in nuclear energy stemmed from a re-evaluation of the dangers and had nothing to do with important state elections held last Sunday.

"The catastrophe from Fukushima -- the extent of which we still do not know -- has also changed my personal views on atomic energy and its risks. I too have learned from it," she said in comments published on Saturday.

Merkel will now wait for the reports from Germany's Reactor Safety Commission in mid-May and its Ethics Commission at the end of May before taking a decision whether to keep the seven oldest reactors permanently offline.

FATAL EXPANSION

Separately, WirtschaftsWoche reported Oettinger plans to talk to nuclear power plant operators and insurers in Brussels on Tuesday about harmonising liabilities across the EU, seen as an implicit subsidy for operators in certain countries.

Whereas nuclear power plants are liable under German regulations for damages of up to 2.5 billion euros, for example, those in France can be found only liable for just 91.5 million.

"It is unfair that a nuclear power plant only needs to insure itself against a fraction of its risks." Green European MP Claude Turmes told the business magazine. The party's parliamentary leader in the Bundestag, Juergen Trittin, argued it was possible to shut down all reactors in Germany thanks to an EU commitment to raise the amount of renewables in its power mix to 38.6 percent by 2020.

"Not only can we then replace nuclear power with renewables, but we can also take a big chunk out of our fossil fuel needs as well," Trittin told Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

Opponents of a quick exit, though, believe Germany would end up resorting to either burning coal to plug the gap, or import nuclear power from neighbouring countries like France.

Germany's VDMA, which lobbies on behalf of some 3,000 industrial engineers including Siemens (SIEGn.DE: Quote), said that simply boosting the amount of green energy in the country would not suffice for manufacturers.

"A one-sided expansion of renewables would be fatal," VDMA President Thomas Lindner told WirtschaftsWoche.

"We need a secure power supply for our high-precision operations. A power outage for just one millisecond costs my company 20,000 euros."

(Reporting by Christiaan Hetzner; Editing by Erica Billingham, sourced Thomson Reuters)

France says Japan loses control of situation at nuclear power plant

2011-03-17 16:14:19

France's Energy and Industry Minister Eric Besson arrives to attend a hearing about Nuclear power at the National Assembly in Paris March 16, 2011.

France's government said on Wednesday that Japan was losing control of the situation at a tsunami-crippled nuclear power plant and urged its nationals in Tokyo to leave the country or
head to southern Japan.

(Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

Japan issues state of emergency at nuke plant after cooling system failure; no radiation leak

Fri, Mar11, 2011

AP – 1 hour 17 minutes ago

Japan issues state of emergency at nuke plant after cooling system failure; no radiation leak.

Quake shuts Japan plants, seen setting back economy, BOJ offers help

Fri Mar 11, 2011 9:41am GMT

* Nuclear power plants, refineries shut after massive quake
* Disaster fresh blow to struggling economy; BOJ pledges support
* Power outages shut factories; all ports, some airports shut
* Yen, stocks fall, bonds jump on economic fallout concerns
(Adds more details on damage, death toll, Toyota plants)

By Osamu Tsukimori and Stanley White

TOKYO, March 11 (Reuters) - Auto plants, electronics factories and oil refineries shut across large parts of Japan on Friday after a powerful earthquake rocked the country, triggering a tsunami, buckling roads and knocking out power to millions of homes and businesses.

Several airports, including Tokyo's Narita, were closed and rail services halted. All of the country's ports were closed.

Electronics giant Sony Corp , one of the country's biggest exporters, shut six factories, Kyodo news agency reported, as air force jets roared toward the most heavily affected northeast coast to assess the damage from the 8.9 magnitude quake, the biggest to hit Japan in 140 years.

The Bank of Japan, which has been struggling to boost the anaemic economy, said it would do its utmost to ensure financial market stability as the yen and Japanese shares fell.

"There are car and semiconductor factories in northern Japan, so there will be some economic impact due to damage to factories," said Yasuo Yamamoto, senior economist at Mizuho Research Institute in Tokyo.

Japanese media reported at least six deaths and many injuries, with fires breaking out from Sendai city in northern Japan to Tokyo. A tsunami 10 metres high hit Sendai port but there were no immediate reports of damage.

The Miyagi prefecture and surrounding areas include major manufacturing and industrial zones, with many chemical and electronics plants. Television showed black smoke pouring out of an industrial area in Yokohama's Isogo area.

Toyota Motor Corp said it had halted production at a parts factory and two assembly plants in the area, while Nissan Motor Co , the country's second-largest automaker, stopped operations at four factories, media reported.

Two people were reported killed by a collapsing ceiling at a Honda Motor Co factory in Tochigi Prefecture, north of Tokyo, but no other details were immediately available.

The quake occurred as the economy was showing signs of reviving from a contraction in the final quarter of last year. The disaster raised the prospect of major disruptions for many key businesses, at least in the short term.

The yen fell as much as 0.3 percent against the dollar before recouping its losses, while Nikkei stock futures plunged nearly 5 percent at one point.

The disaster also weighed on markets elsewhere, pushing shares in European insurance companies down. Large reinsurers -- Swiss Re , Hannover Re and Munich Re -- were all down more than 4 percent.

The earthquake happened just before the Tokyo stock market closed.

"Stocks will probably fall on Monday, especially of those companies, that have factories in the affected areas, but on the whole the selloff will likely be short-lived," said Mitsuhsige Akino, a fund manager at Ichiyoshi Investment Management.

Bond futures surged on worries the widespread damage would put further pressure on the already sputtering economy, while the most active gold contract on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange, February 2012 , inched higher.

"We still don't know the full scale of the damage, but considering what happened after the earthquake in Kobe, this will certainly lead the government to compile an emergency budget. We can expect consumption to fall. This could temporarily pull down gross domestic product," Yamamoto said.

With Japanese interest rates already near zero, analysts said the central bank and the government had few options but to inject more money into the economy, even if it risked swelling the already bloated deficit.

"The extent of the damage is hard to tell but it seems devastating for the northern Japan economy. The government must act quickly to announce support packages and the central bank should pump more money into the economy," said Tsutomu Yamada, a market analysts at Kabu.com Securities.

The 1995 quake that devastated Kobe caused $100 billion in damage.

"The government would have to sell more bonds, but this is an emergency, so this can't be avoided," Yamamoto said.

"Given where the Bank of Japan's benchmark interest rate is now, they can't really lower rates. The BOJ will focus on providing liquidity, possibly by expanding market operations."

POWER PLANTS, REFINERIES SHUT

Hokuriku Electric Co said on Friday all of three reactors at its Onagawa nuclear plant in northern Japan shut down automatically after the quake, but no nuclear leaks were reported.

Electric Power Development (J-Power) also halted operations of its Isogo thermal power plant in Yokohama, Jiji reported.

Television reported a major fire at Cosmo Oil Co's Chiba refinery, east of Tokyo. JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp, Japan's top refiner, halted operations at three refineries in Sendai, Kashima and Negishi, Jiji News said.

Japanese media reported a fire at JFE Holdings Inc's steel plant in Chiba. JFE, the world's fifth-largest steelmaker, said there was no major impact.

Primearth EV Energy Co Ltd, a joint venture between Panasonic Corp and Toyota making batteries for environmentally friendly vehicles, said its Miyagi battery factory had halted production because of power cuts. The extent of any damage was not clear, but a spokesman said it did not appear to be major. (Additional reporting by TOKYO bureau; Writing by Kim Coghill; Editing by Tomasz Janowski,sourced:Thomson Reuters)