Glitch-Plagued Czech Nuclear Reactor Suffers Another Shutdown

CIVIL NUCLEAR

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Second Reactor Back In Service At Lithuania's Iganlina Nuclear Plant
Vilnius (AFP) June 12, 2002 - The second reactor at Lithuania's Ignalina nuclear power plant has resumed operation following a 10-week shutdown for scheduled repairs, a spokesman said Wednesday.

The second of the Soviet-design plant's two reactors, which came back on stream on Tuesday, currently operates at 665-megawatt capacity, while the first reactor operates at 1300-megawatt capacity.

On Tuesday Lithuania struck a deal with the European Union committing itself to close Ignalina completely by 2009, clearing one of the main obstacles to the Baltic country joining the 15-naiton bloc.

The EU considers Ignalina unsafe as its two Soviet-built RBMK reactors are of same the design as the Chernobyl plant which exploded in 1986. Ignalina produces about 70 percent of Lithuania's electricity.

Prague (AFP) June 12, 2002
A glitch-plagued nuclear plant automatically shut down just 24 hours after the plant was plugged into the Czech Republic's national power grid, officials said Wednesday.

The originally Soviet-designed Temelin plant, the subject of fierce protests by neighbouring Austria, was given approval on Monday to plug into the national grid for an 18-month trial period.

But late Tuesday, the plant's number 1 reactor was shut down by its emergency system after it detected a fault with its generator, plant spokesman Milan Nebesar said.

He said operators were now correcting a problem with the system's water-tightness after reducing the reactor's power from 100 percent to three percent.

The Czech Office of Nuclear Safety (SUJB) gave the approval after a final 144-hour test of the number 1 reactor at Temelin, barely 60 km (35 miles) from the Austrian border in southern Bohemia.

State power company Ceske Energeticke Zavody (CEZ) took over ownership of the plant after completion of the final test at the plant, which has suffered repeated technical problems since first firing up in October 2000.

The plant, originally built in the 1980s but upgraded with Western security equipment by US giant Westinghouse, has fueled a fierce diplomatic row between Austria and the Czech Republic in the last two years.

Austria's far-right has even threatened to veto the Czech Republic's EU hopes over Temelin, although Conservative Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel has agreed to abide by accords with Prague on safety and environmental guarantees.

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CIVIL NUCLEAR

Russia To Bid For Finnish Nuclear Power Plant Contract

Moscow (AFP) June 10, 2002
Russia intends to bid for the construction of a nuclear reactor in Finland, the Russian minister for atomic energy, Alexander Roumiantsev, told the Itar-Tass agency on Monday.

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