Search Results for: Germany

BY KEITH NUTHALL

European Union (EU) ministers today agreed to launch a safety assessment of Europe’s 143 nuclear reactors, re-checking their safety in the light of the Fukushima nuclear accidents. Speaking this afternoon following an emergency meeting of the EU Council of Ministers (energy), the meeting’s chair – Hungary’s national development minister Tamas Fellegi – said the assessment should be underway before the end of the year, and would, it was hoped, cover countries neighbouring the EU.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Union (EU) research project is developing an innovative business model which can allow consumers to design and choose their own clothing online, with manufacturers shipping remotely-controlled bespoke work. The Euro 5.17 million Open Garments project aims to create a secure and practical electronic communications system delivering customer requirements to manufacturers, who can act on them swiftly.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

IT almost seems like yesterday when European policymakers were hailing biofuels as the practical green alternative to fossil fuels, so clean – cars, vans and trucks might as well have been running on water. However, with the growing and widespread acceptance that producing many biofuels (and burning them of course) produces substantial carbon emissions, those days are well and truly over.…

BY MARK ROWE

THE DISRUPTION to the European airport sector caused by the continent’s heavy snowfall this winter – the heaviest in 20 years – looks set to prompt a radical shake-up of contingency plans to deal with bad weather.

Many European airports are now conducting reviews of how they source, commission and stockpile equipment for such eventualities.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission may this year release proposals to reduce the vulnerability of the European Union’s (EU) emissions trading system (ETS) to fraud. Cyber-criminals launched a lucrative attack on its systems in January. How open is this ground-breaking system to fraud?…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has today (February 24) suspended the emergency storage aid it has offered to pigmeat producers since late January, when prices were reeling following Germany’s dioxin contamination crisis. Brussels says markets are now stabilising and will not accept any requests for assistance made after this Monday (February 21).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

GERMANY’S Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology has been testing how carbon dioxide at 30.1 Celsius and a pressure of 73.8 bar can become an effective dye carrier. It then "goes into a supercritical state that gives the gas solvent-like properties," said an institute note, and can be introduced into polymers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

SLAUGHTERHOUSES may have to install additional ventilation and air extraction systems after scientists discovered bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) can be spread to livestock by air. The have found prions – the infectious agents triggering the disease – are not necessarily transmitted only by eating contaminated material.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has fast-tracked regulatory approval of UK-based Ineos’ planned takeover of a polystyrene and expanded polystyrene joint venture operated with Canada’s Nova since 2005. The business has 11 manufacturing plants in six countries: the Netherlands, France, Sweden, Germany, Canada and the USA.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

PAINTS, coatings and other construction materials containing hazardous substances will have to be clearly labelled to protect the health and safety of builders and other users, under a new European Union (EU) regulation. Covering the EU-wide sale of construction products, the European Parliament and EU ministers have struck agreement on the final text, which insists every product is sold with a "declaration of performance" by manufacturers.…