Unlike its neighbors Germany, Italy and Switzerland, France is increasing investment in nuclear power. President Nicolas Sarkozy has announced 1 billion euro nuclear spending program. “There is no alternative to nuclear energy today,” he said. “We are going to devote a billion euros to the nuclear program of the future, particularly fourth-generation technology,” Mr Sarkozy […]
It seems that politicians spend most of their time trying to get elected and re-elected. After a few terms in office, though, they start to focus more on their legacy – less on what the voters think of them, and more on what historians will think of them. For some, their legacy is changing the […]
Italian voters cast ballots Sunday and yesterday in referenda on four questions: two on privatization of water services, one on criminal procedure (which would exempt the prime minister from prosecution) and one on a return to using nuclear power. More than 57% voted, surpassing the 50% +1 needed for the referenda to be binding. Of […]
OPEC’s meeting in Vienna a couple days ago ended without the cartel agreeing on a production level. This hasn’t happened in years (if memory serves, the last time was during the Iran-Iraq War), and it has left many questioning the organization’s future. After 5 hours of talks, the Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said, […]
Brazil has relied on sugar cane-derived ethanol for much of its auto fleet for years. However, the industry has hit a soft patch in investment. Since 2005, the country has built 117 ethanol mills, but after the five currently coming on line are finished there are no plans for further expansion. When you consider that […]
Germany’s Environment Minister Norbert Rottgen announced that Germany is going nuclear-free by 2022. The country’s seven oldest reactors were taken off-line shortly after the Fukushima meltdown, and an eighth (the glitch-prone Kruemmel facility in northern Germany) has been off-line for technical reasons and won’t be returned to active service. Six more will go into shut […]
Switzerland’s government has decided to go nuclear-free in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster. Last week-end, 20,000 rallied against nuclear power. Earlier today, the cabinet decided to build no new fission plants while allowing those currently on line to operate through their designed lifespan. “Existing nuclear power plants will be closed at the end of […]
Last week, Alberta’s Energy Minister Ron Liepert was in the US to promote his province’s energy sector. During breakfast at the Penn Club in Manhattan organized by the Canadian Consulate-General, he discussed a wide array of energy-related subjects. The message he had for US foreign policy was simply that Alberta (and by extension Canada as […]
A deal between BP and Russia’s state-owned oil company Rosneft to explore the Arctic seems to have fallen apart after the two failed to come to an arrangement on a stock swap. It is now doubtful that BP will get a piece of the Arctic action at all. Rosneft was to take a 5% stake […]
Saudi Arabia’s Aramco, the world’s largest state-owned oil company, has announced plans to double the amount of power it can generate to about 4,000 megawatts by 2015. “Currently we have approximately 2,000 megawatts of generating power internally … we want … to go to 4 to 4.5 gigawatts depending on new facilities that are coming,” […]
The Iranian nuclear power plant built by Russia at Bushehr is now operating. Atomstroyexport says that a self-sustained fission reaction began on Sunday. “This is one of the final stages in the physical launch of the reactor,” said Vladislav Bochkov, a spokesman for the Russian company. The plant is at “the minimum controlled power level.” […]
This morning on NHK TV, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku (the second-in-command in Japan’s civil service) said, “Our energy policy is to stick to nuclear power.” Japan’s 54 nuclear reactors are under review for safety in light of the Fukushima disaster, but apart from three reactors at the Hamaoka facility in central Japan, the […]
Yesterday, the price of crude oil dropped about 10%. This will not bring any immediately relief to motorists, nor does it mean that a bear market has started in the trading pits. The sell-off did not come from the killing of Usama bin Laden (or it would have happened on Monday), nor did any survey, […]
A new US Energy Information Administration study, World Shale Gas Resources: An Initial Assessment of 14 Regions Outside the US, suggests that shale gas is going to be the game-changer around the world that it has been in the US. A good example is Poland. According to the EIA study, Poland has 5.3 trillion cubic […]
It was 25 years ago today that the Number 4 reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic exploded. The first the world learned of it was the following day when radiation detectors in Sweden went berserk. The heroics of the “liquidators,” many of whom died from radiation sickness in […]