International

Scotland’s location on the North Sea is ideal for the development of carbon capture and storage hubs, Stuart Haszeldine, director of Scottish Carbon Capture and Storage, said Monday in an editorial published in the Herald Scotland. Haszeldine noted the findings of a study published last week by the Energy Technology Institute. “The first storage can […]

Following the adoption and impending entry into force of the Paris Agreement, the world has entered a “new era” of climate action, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres said Monday. “Leaving the phase of negotiations behind, this is a new era of collaboration,” Figueres said during the opening plenary of […]

An Australian advocacy organization launched a campaign Monday against South Australia’s proposal to store international nuclear waste, which the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission estimated would pump AUS $257 billion of revenue into the state over 120 years. The No Dump Alliance said the plan shows a lack of respect for Aboriginal communities; future generations; […]

Governments will meet in Bonn, Germany, on Monday for the U.N. Climate Change Conference to discuss the next steps necessary to implement the Paris climate change agreement. Delegates meet for the first time as the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement (APA) and begin to prepare draft decisions on all the issues in […]

Two new facilities for secure radiological material storage have been dedicated at a radioactive waste disposal institution in Tajikistan, the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration announced Thursday. The facilities at the State Institution Radioactive Waste Disposal Site are part of a broader U.S. effort to prevent terrorists from acquiring radiological materials, the agency said. Tajikistan […]

President Barack Obama’s trip to Japan later this month will include a stop in the city of Hiroshima, the White House announced Tuesday. This will make him the first serving U.S. president to visit the site of the Aug. 6, 1945, U.S. atomic bomb strike. Obama “will make an historic visit to Hiroshima with Prime […]

Defense Daily With tensions rising between the United States and Russia in Europe and the Middle East, lawmakers responsible for securing the Soviet Union’s nuclear stockpile after its collapse on Monday called for building a bridge between the old enemies at least on the subject of nuclear weapons. Retired Sens. Sam Nun (D-Ga.) and Richard […]

Australia’s Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission on Monday recommended that South Australia aggressively pursue international nuclear waste disposal agreements estimated to deliver more than AUS $100 billion in state profit. The commission released its final recommendation to South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill on a plan for the state to tap into Asia’s market for nuclear […]

The United Kingdom’s Energy Technologies Institute, following a 12-month study, has confirmed the viability of five potential carbon storage sites in the North Sea. “All five sites have been studied in detail. As a result, there is confidence regarding the ability to inject CO2 at commercially significant rates, the capacity to store CO2 in commercially […]

Looking out to 2040, the energy mix of all Canadian provinces are expected to change, though the use of carbon capture and storage in fossil fuel energy generation may be limited to Saskatchewan, home to the world’s first commercial-scale post-combustion CCS retrofit to an existing coal-fired power plant, according to an assessment issued Thursday by […]

The United States, United Kingdom, and Canada have pledged more than $30 million to assist developing countries in meeting the reporting requirements included in the Paris climate change agreement, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change announced Wednesday. Under the Paris Agreement, countries are required to provide regular updates on their progress toward lowering […]

Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff and nuclear industry representatives are set next week to brief the NRC commissioners on the progress of the Japan Lessons Learned initiative, which is the regulator’s response to the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster. NRC has scheduled the briefing for 9 a.m. May 17 in the Commissioners’ Conference Room at agency headquarters […]

Barring any more last-minute surprises, the Senate’s version of the Energy Department’s fiscal 2017 budget appears set to cruise to a vote as soon as Thursday, after lawmakers on Wednesday stripped the measure of a controversial amendment that prompted Democrats to filibuster the proposal three times in as many weeks. The fourth time, however, may […]

Total energy production in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries rose 4 percent in 2014 while CO2 emissions from fuel combustion fell, according to new data from the International Energy Agency. “The leading factor in the recent decoupling is a decline in the energy intensity of OECD countries’ economies, which is the result […]

President Barack Obama’s trip to Japan later this month will include a stop in the city of Hiroshima, the White House announced Tuesday. This will make him the first serving U.S. president to visit the site of the Aug. 6, 1945, U.S. atomic bomb strike. Obama “will make an historic visit to Hiroshima with Prime […]

In the absence of a national plan to provide £1 billion in funding for a carbon capture and storage demonstration project, the U.K. should partner with Norway to continue development of the technology, British Labor Party MP Alan Whitehead said in an editorial Monday. The U.K. pulled the plug on a £1 billion CCS commercialization […]

The Boundary Dam Unit 3 carbon capture and storage project was online 100 percent of the time in April, operator SaskPower reported Monday in a monthly update. April is the third month this year in which the project has met that milestone. Maintenance in February shut the plant down for a few days, and that […]

The U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said Monday it has awarded a series of four-year research and development contracts worth up to £12 million across multiple sites. The three new framework contracts were awarded to 10 consortia involving more than 70 organizations. Those involved include U.K. universities, multinational corporations, and about 20 small- to medium-sized businesses. […]

Australia’s Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission on Monday recommended that South Australia aggressively pursue international nuclear waste disposal agreements estimated to deliver more than AUS $100 billion in state profit. The commission released its final recommendation to South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill on a plan for the state to tap into Asia’s market for nuclear fuel […]

The nationally determined contributions of nations that have ratified the Paris Agreement are now available online via a newly launched portal from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Currently, the NDCs of 17 nations can be found on the portal: Barbados, Belize, Fiji, Grenada,    Maldives, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Nauru, Palau, Panama, Papua New […]

The entry into force of the 2005 Amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (CPPNM) was a key step in preventing nuclear terrorism, but much work remains, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Sunday. The update took effect Sunday, a month after the necessary two-thirds of the 152 CPPNM member nations ratified the […]

Australia’s Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission on Monday will release its final report analyzing a nuclear waste plan that a lawmaker claims would deliver billions of dollars in revenue to South Australia over the course of 30 years. South Australia Sen. Sean Edwards’ plan would allow the state to tap into Asia’s market for nuclear […]

The United Nations’ Open-Ended Working Group on multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations began its second round of meetings in Geneva, Switzerland this week. The working group serves as a forum for cooperative action, under the U.N. General Assembly, with the purpose to “address concrete effective legal measures, legal provisions, and norms that will need to be […]

The Amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (CPPNM) will formally enter into force on Sunday, a month after the International Atomic Energy Agency announced the measure had received the necessary number of ratifications. “The entry into force of the Amendment demonstrates the determination of the international community to act together […]

After decades of working to raise awareness regarding climate change and incite action on the political and private sector fronts to address the threat, former Vice President Al Gore can say he is optimistic about mankind’s ability to win the battle. “We’re going to win this,” Gore said Thursday during an appearance at the Climate […]

The 10- to 15-year time frames of most country contributions to the international Paris climate change agreement are not adequate to lead to a decarbonized world, Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, said Thursday. “If you plan only to 2025 or 2030 I guarantee you we will get this dreadfully wrong, […]

Building on the momentum of the Paris climate change negotiations, participating states should work to bring the resulting agreement into force “at the latest by next year,” United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told reporters Thursday. Ban was building on comments made earlier in the day during a keynote presentation at the Climate Action 2016 […]

Germany, which has increased its use of fossil fuel energy generation since closing all of its nuclear power plants following the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster in Japan, expects to end coal-fired power generation “well before” 2050, Reuters reported. According to a draft document seen by the wire service, the government is establishing a committee to […]

The time to talk the talk on global climate is over; it’s now time to walk the walk, Jonathan Pershing, U.S. special envoy for climate change, said Wednesday at the Going Green Conference hosted by the European Commission in Washington, D.C. “We have seen in some sense the end of one era, the era of […]

Contractors have begun work on the Port Granby facility in Ontario, Canada, a project that will involve relocating 450,000 cubic meters of historic low-level radioactive waste from the Lake Ontario shoreline. Prime contractor Amec Foster Wheeler, which made the announcement Tuesday, has partnered with CB&I for the CDN $86.8 million contract the Port Hope Area […]