International

Russia has postponed a nuclear waste disposal agreement with Ukraine because the latter has been unable to make payments, according to the Russian state-owned news agency TASS. The agency made the announcement Monday, saying that Ukraine has seen about $7.95 billion seized from the company, Energoatom, the largest energy provider in the country. Ukraine signed […]

Negotiations remain ongoing on the highly enriched uranium (HEU) shipment from the United Kingdom to the U.S. that was announced at the fourth and final Nuclear Security Summit earlier this year, according to documents published Tuesday from the U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Euratom Supply Agency […]

International cooperation on nuclear nonproliferation improved over the last year, largely due to the Iran nuclear deal, according to a May 17 report by the Council on Foreign Relations. The Council of Councils (CoC) Report Card on International Cooperation evaluates multilateral activities on global challenges by surveying its network of 26 foreign policy institutes worldwide. Its […]

The Senate confirmed Laura Holgate Thursday to be U.S. Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Vienna Office of the United Nations. President Barack Obama nominated Holgate in August, at which time National Security Advisor Susan Rice said Holgate has played a key role in strengthening the global nuclear security architecture. “Laura […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not gone far enough in improving safety at American nuclear plants in response to the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, an independent, NRC-funded study claims. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in its second and final report on Fukushima lessons learned found that while NRC has implemented most of its […]

Limiting global temperature rise to between 1.5 and 2-degrees Celsius is not the impossible task it may seem, according to Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nationals Framework Convention on Climate Change. In a May 23 editorial aimed at the Group of Seven countries, which are meeting in Japan this week, Figueres laid out […]

Negotiations remain ongoing on the highly enriched uranium (HEU) shipment from the United Kingdom to the U.S. that was announced at the fourth and final Nuclear Security Summit earlier this year, according to a document published Tuesday from the U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Euratom Supply […]

International cooperation on nuclear nonproliferation improved over the last year, largely due to the Iran nuclear deal, according to a May 17 report by the Council on Foreign Relations. Th Council of Councils (CoC) Report Card on International Cooperation evaluates multilateral activities on global challenges by surveying its network of 26 foreign policy institutes worldwide. Its […]

China’s coal demand has been decreasing for two years and is expected to continue that trend, Kang Wu, vice chairman for Asia and managing director of Fact Global Energy (FGE) China, said Tuesday at an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “We have a big debate in China. One school of […]

To frame global, local, and country level climate change discussions, the World Bank Tuesday released a set of six Principles for Dialogue on Climate Action. “Dialogues are under way in the climate change space, and public-private dialogue is a proven tool with a long track record of success in developing countries. These principles when leveraged […]

Vietnam has joined the growing list of nations pledging to ratify the Paris climate change agreement by the end of the year. The nation, which accounts for .72 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, stated Monday in a joint announcement with the U.S. that they will “[i]mplement the historic Paris Agreement. To reflect the importance […]

Progress made in the remaining negotiations related to the Paris climate change agreement in Bonn this week is underwhelming, particularly in light of the fact that formal negotiations will not resume again until November, members of the Climate Action Network said Monday. “It’s very important also to come out of this week here with mandating […]

The world will need negative carbon technology, such as direct air capture, if there is any chance of limiting global average temperature rise to 1.5-degrees, Klaus Lackner, director of the Center for Negative Carbon Emissions at Arizona State University told Yale Environment 360 in a recent question and answer. Lackner notes that because carbon stays […]

The South American nation of Guyana Friday announced the ratification of the Paris Agreement making it the 17th nation to join. “The early ratification of the Paris Agreement is consistent with the stated commitment of the Government of Guyana to strong action towards the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change,” according to a Ministry […]

Decommissioning crews at Scotland’s shuttered Dounreay nuclear facility are using a household putty solution to gather metal samples from the base of the site’s Prototype Fast Reactor (PFR). In a press release Monday, organizers described how they forewent a new design and build project in favor of attaching Blu-Tack to the end of a long, […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not gone far enough in improving safety at American nuclear plants in response to the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, an independent, NRC-funded study claims. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in its second and final report on Fukushima lessons learned found that while NRC has implemented most of its […]

The U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) awarded Amec Foster Wheeler two R&D contracts for integrated waste management, site remediation, and spent fuel and nuclear materials management, the company announced Monday. The framework contracts, worth up to £12 million across multiple sites, were issued under NDA’s Direct Research Portfolio to 10 consortia. The 70 organizations involved […]

As world leaders meet in Japan this week for the Group of Seven Summit, a new report has exposed Japan as the only nation in the G7 actively pursuing new coal power plants. The report, out by E3G, analyzes the market and policy contexts of coal use in each of the G7 nations. “Policy makers […]

At current emissions levels, the world will exceed its carbon budget to limit global temperature rise to 1.5-degrees in just five years, according to updated analysis from Carbon Brief. The Paris climate change agreement, adopted by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in December set the global climate change goal to keeping temperature-rise […]

South Australia Premier Jay Weatherill said Tuesday the government will ultimately decide the fate of the state’s proposed nuclear waste disposal facility, the same day he approved a new government agency to facilitate community engagement on the project. In its final report issued last week, the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission recommended that South Australia […]

The Department of Energy will proceed with plans to purchase Iranian heavy water, despite lingering sentiment in some quarters of Capitol Hill that it should not do so, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz assured an audience of journalists and Beltway insiders Wednesday morning. It was a course of action that — despite sometimes strenuous objection in […]

The Petroleum Technology Research Center (PTRC), manager of the Aquistore CO2 storage project in Saskatchewan, signed a letter of understanding (LOU) with the University of Alberta, which will use data from the project to aid in carbon capture utilization and storage research and capacity-building in Mexico. “The site characterization, modelling, geomechanical and geophysical research undertaken […]

Patricia Espinosa, Mexico’s ambassador to Germany, has been formally appointed as executive secretary for the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced Espinosa’s nomination in early May, at which time a consultation with the Bureau of the UNFCCC began. Meeting in Bonn this week, the UNFCCC on Thursday announced the […]

The United Kingdom’s National Oceanography Center has teamed up with researchers from the University of Southampton and the University of Edinburgh to investigate the threat of offshore CO2 leakage through “chimney-like” structure in the sub-seafloor of the North Sea. The North Sea has been regarded as holding vast potential for offshore carbon storage, and many […]

Renegotiating the Paris climate change agreement can only be done logistically if it can be done politically, which is not likely, Elliot Diringer, executive vice president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), told GHG Daily on Wednesday following comments by assumed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump that he intends to do just […]

The Department of Energy will proceed with plans to purchase Iranian heavy water, despite lingering sentiment in some quarters of Capitol Hill that it should not do so, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz assured an audience of journalists and Beltway insiders Wednesday morning. It was a course of action that — despite sometimes strenuous objection in […]

As the world works to decarbonize but fossil energy demand is sustained, carbon capture and storage technology is also likely to be in demand, the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization said Tuesday in its Australia 2030 report. “With high abatement and a global push towards environmentally-friendly operations, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) has […]

Meeting ahead of the Group of Seven (G7) leaders’ summit in Japan next week the environmental ministers from Japan, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States reaffirmed their commitment to addressing the threat of climate change, according to a communiqué released Monday. The ministers applauded the December 2015 adoption of the […]

Now that the negotiation of the Paris Agreement is complete, it’s time for nations to begin implementing their intended nationally determined contributions, preferably even before the accord enters into force, United National Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres said Tuesday during the UNFCCC’s Bonn Climate Change Conference. “We do have a remarkable […]

South Australia Premier Jay Weatherill said Tuesday the government will ultimately decide the fate of the state’s proposed nuclear waste disposal facility, the same day he approved a new government agency to facilitate community engagement on the project. In its final report issued last week, the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission recommended that South Australia aggressively pursue […]