1) European REACH Regulation coming into force, soon
2) Questionnaire to CO2 capture and storage
3) German nuclear power plants worldwide in the lead also in 2006
4) Platts study: The worldwide production of nuclear energy reached a record level in 2006
5) VGB-M643U "Chimneys for Operation Without Reheating of Flue Gas after FGD"
The European regulation concerning the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of chemicals (REACH) will come into force on 1 June 2007. Power plant operators are involved indirectly as users of chemical and directly as producers of marketed by-products like fly ash, FGD gypsum etc.. VGB together with VDEW and ECOBA (and with BV Gips and Eurogypsum in the case of FGD gypsum) is preparing consortia for joint preregistration and registration of the specific by-products and will in due time invite the European by-product producers to join the consortia to be established.
More information:
mailto:wolfgang.vomberg@vgb.org
The Commission is currently analysing to what extent CO2 capture and geological storage can be relevant as a tool for the environment and energy policies of the European Union. It has issued a questionnaire (see Link)to give all EU citizens the opportunity to give their opinions on this matter. Deadline for filling in the questionnaire is 16 April 2007.
http://ec.europa.eu/yourvoice/ipm/forms/dispatch?form=CCS&lang=en
In 2006 the most successful nuclear power plants in the world were operated in Germany. Seven out of ten worldwide best production results were achieved by German nuclear power plants. The nuclear power plant ISAR-2 was world champion in energy production for the 8th time. This war reported by Deutsches Atomforum e.V. (DAtF) on February 19, 2007.
In 2006 the 17 German nuclear power plants apparently produced some more energy than in the previous year. As the association Deutsche Atomforum reported on January 17, 2007 in Berlin, the production of the nuclear power plants had increased by 2.7 per cent up to 167.4 billion kilowatt hours. On average the individual German power plants had been in operation slightly more than 91 per cent of the time. That means two percentage more than 2005. The Atomforum called the nuclear energy as the basic pillar of the supply safety.
More Information:
mailto:manfred.grundhoefer@vgb.org
The nuclear power operators all over the world reached a record level for the total energy production in 2006. These data were recently published by Nucleonics Week. Lead by the production results in Canada, Japan and Russia which remarkably improved as well as the lasting production performance in the USA, South Korea and France the worldwide energy production generated by nuclear power is expected to reach 2.8 billion gross megawatt hours (MWh). This is published in the Platts Nucleonics Week annual survey 2006.
This is comparable with the result of 2.75 billion megawatt hours in 2005, the highest registered result ever since Platts has begun to collect data regarding nuclear power production in the late sixties.
More Information:
mailto:manfred.grundhoefer@vgb.org
The Instruction Sheet VGB-M643U "Chimneys for Operation Without Reheating of Flue Gas after FGD" is now available. As supplementary paper to the VGB Instruction Sheet M642U(e) "Industrial Chimneys" it provides operators and manufacturers with essential information on the discharge of flue gas via chimneys according to amended regulations (i. e. German Large Furnaces Order), dispensing from a minimum flue gas temperature at the chimney outlet. The paper describes the (modified) physical, mechanical and chemical conditions within the flue gas duct after the desulphurization plant and gives practice recommendations for the execution of new and the retrofit of existing facilities applying "wet stack operation".
The English version VGB-M643Ue will be available shortly. Meanwhile released is the English edition VGB-M642Ue "Industrial Chimneys - Evaluation of Designs, Notes on Construction and Commissioning".
http://www.vgb.org/shop/product_info.php/products_id/487
Main topics of the April issue are: New Vattenfall Projects; Clean Coal Technologies - International Activities; Prevention Activities for the Energy Industry by the BGFE; Economic Analysis of Geothermal Electricity Generation in Germany.
Abstracts of all articles are available here:
http://www.vgb.org/current_issue.html