Nucleaire et Energies Nr 65 - March 2015

After a first brief article about the difficult situation faced by Areva, and an article about the Japanese situation four years after the Fukushima accident and the progressive restarting of reactors, an article proposes an overview of recent evolutions and events in the energy sector: the sharp decrease of oil prices and its consequences for Total and the European Union. Three articles concern nuclear activities: recent events in the mining and fuel fabrication sectors (perspectives, restructuring in the USA, contracts for Areva and EDF), overview of the situation of reactors (with perspective for the installed power by 2050, unclear perspectives in France, projects in the UK in Hinkley Point, Moorside, and Wylfa, situation in Belgium, Hungary and Russia, contracts for Areva and EDF, situation in Taiwan, India, South Korea, Japan, USA, South Africa), overview of activities and events related to the back-end of the fuel cycle and to decommissioning in different countries (recycling activities in France, decommissioning in France and in the UK, warehousing in France and Germany, a new warehousing system to be approved in the USA, events related to storage activities). An article discusses issues related to the lifetime of French nuclear reactors, and another one discusses the identification of electric power costs and ways to compare them. A last article briefly discusses some terminological confusion between energy and electricity, and between produced energy and available power