Europe’s Nuclear Reactors Need Repair or Upgrades

BRUSSELS — “Practically all” of the more than 130 active nuclear reactors in the European Union need safety improvements, repairs or upgrades, at a cost of up to 25 billion euros ($32 billion), according to a draft copy of a European Commission report that is scheduled to be released Thursday.

The scale of the problems detailed in the draft report, as well as the size of the expected repair bill, may amplify public concerns about the safety of nuclear power on the part of Europeans, who are already deeply divided over the technology and whose governments still zealously guard control over energy policy at the national level. 

The European Commission undertook the safety review of its nuclear plants after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, which led to the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. 

Part of the assessment was the performance of so-called stress tests, which are meant to assess how a nuclear facility would fare in various kinds of failures and crises. National experts conducted the stress tests in conjunction with the commission’s advisory group on nuclear safety. The tests identified the need for “hundreds of technical upgrade measures,” the draft report says. 

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