Nuclear plant safety costs rise

The cost of extending nuclear reactor lives to 60 years could reach 50 billion (R526.4bn) as safety measures ordered by regulators forced Électricité de France (EDF) to accelerate investment, the company said yesterday. EDF was ordered by the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire yesterday to spend billions of euro on improvements in a safety review following last year’s Fukushima disaster in Japan. The improvements “will require an increase in annual capital expenditure”, nuclear engineering head Jean-marc Miraucourt said. – Bloomberg