Ottawa formally invites bids for CANDU
OTTAWA, CANADA - The federal government is formally inviting offers as it seeks to privatize the nuclear reactor division of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.
In announcing the request for "investor proposals," Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt said the goal is to boost AECL's global presence while reducing the financial risk carried by taxpayers.
The research-and-technology division of the Crown corporation, including the Chalk River laboratories and its troubled medical isotope production, are not part of the government sale.
A National Bank study commissioned by the Conservative government determined there is "significant private sector interest" in a stand-alone CANDU reactor business.
However the government may have undercut its own bargaining position when Prime Minister Stephen Harper's chief spokesman described AECL as a "dysfunctional" $30-billion "sink-hole" last June.
That same month, the Ontario government put off a decision on new reactor construction after deciding all the bids – including one for an untried, next-generation AECL reactor – were too costly.
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The nuclear power dispute driving a wedge between France and Germany
BERLIN - Near the French village of Fessenheim, facing Germany across the Rhine, a nuclear power station stands dormant. The German protesters that once demanded the site’s closure have decamped, and the last watts were produced three years ago.
But disagreements over how the plant from 1977 should be repurposed persist, speaking to a much deeper divide over nuclear power between the two countries on either side of the river’s banks.
German officials have disputed a proposal to turn it into a centre to treat metals exposed to low levels of radioactivity, Fessenheim’s mayor Claude Brender says. “They are not on board…
