Areva aiming to dominate British nuclear design: CEO London (AFP) June 9, 2008 French nuclear giant Areva is aiming to dominate the design and construction of future reactors in Britain, its chief executive told the Financial Times in an interview published Monday. According to Anne Lauvergeon, as well as having pledges from leading energy companies EDF and Eon, Areva was "in discussions with other players about being in exclusivity with them" to build new nuclear reactors in Britain. She said that Britain was "the most exciting place in Europe" for nuclear power, and added that the company had been "very impressed by the decisions taken by the British government over a short period of time, over the last two years, to restart nuclear investment in Great Britain." Lauvergeon denied that the company would stifle competition by dominating the design of nuclear reactors, insisting that companies "can have exactly the same technology but still have competitive advantage because of how you use it." Reacting to predictions by EDF that it could have its first new nuclear reactor up and running by 2017, Lauvergeon said that was "theoretically" possible, but depended on "licensing issues and timing of decisions by the utilities." "If the British system reinvents the wheel, with different rules and different specifications, of course it will take time and it will mean a lot of money," she told the business daily. The British government approved a new generation of nuclear power stations in January, signalling that they were likely to be built on or near existing sites primarily by private firms. Areva, which is 85 percent owned by the state, said in February its 2007 net profit rose 14.5 percent to 743 million euros (1.1 billion dollars). Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Share This Article With Planet Earth
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World major economies see new nuclear dawn Aomori, Japan (AFP) June 9, 2008 Top economic powers have declared that the world is entering a new era of nuclear energy amid rising concerns over high oil prices and global warming, but Germany stood firmly as an exception. |
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