International

Carbon dioxide emissions in China may have already peaked, according to a report by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. The report casts a shadow on the country’s intended nationally determined contribution to the Paris climate agreement, committing the country to peak emissions by 2030. “China’s international commitment to peak emissions […]

The actions of the United Kingdom’s Conservative government are not in line with the commitments the nation made in the recently adopted Paris Agreement, the Labour party’s shadow secretary of state for energy and climate change, Lisa Nandy, wrote Monday in an editorial in the New Statesman. “In recent months, in spite of the success […]

Senior U.S. and U.K. government nuclear cleanup officials and contractors Tuesday morning will compare and contrast the two nations’ approaches to this work, for which the U.S. Department of Energy and U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority each spends $5 billion to $6 billion annually. The speakers will offer insight into the successes and challenges in this sector, along […]

Recent energy policy announcements by the U.K. government, including the scrapping of a £1 million carbon capture and storage commercialization competition, have struck a blow to energy sector investor confidence, according to a March 1 report of Parliament’s Energy and Climate Change Committee. “We found that the Government’s actions have clearly had an impact on […]

The United States, Canada, Norway, and the United Kingdom have assumed leadership roles in carbon storage readiness, according to the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute’s Global Storage Portfolio, published last week. These countries have taken strides in the identification and assessment of storage sites, having established advanced understanding of the storage potential of their […]

Sellafield Ltd has removed the entire bulk stocks of historic nuclear fuel from the pile fuel storage pond at Sellafield, the U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) announced last week. Radioactivity levels in the 68-year-old pond have now been reduced by 70 percent, as a result of the effort. NDA’s cleanup plan of Sellafield, which is […]

The United Kingdom will take center stage as the featured country at the 2016 Waste Management Conference. The conference-opening plenary panel on Monday morning will feature John Clarke, Chief Executive Officer of the U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, along with Clive White, President of Clean Energy Europe, Amec Foster Wheeler (United Kingdom), and Dr. Monica Regalbuto, U.S. […]

About 20 kilograms of plutonium were transported from Switzerland to the United States during the first two months of the year, according to press releases from the Swiss government and the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Neither press release reveals where the material was sent, but an NNSA spokesperson said Thursday the plutonium was […]

The nuclear industry will continue its nuclear security efforts regardless of the status of multilateral political action, Jack Edlow, chairman of the Nuclear Industry Summit (NIS) 2016 International Board of Advisors, said this week. Edlow spoke to reporters on a conference call about the NIS, an official side event to the upcoming Nuclear Security Summit. […]

The Energy Technologies Institute said Wednesday it will invest £200,000 in a nine-month project to study the effects of removing brine from undersea stores that could in the future be used for carbon storage. The study will be conducted by Heriot-Watt University in partnership with Element Energy, T2 Petroleum Technology, and Durham University. “This latest […]

About 20 kilograms of plutonium were transported from Switzerland to the United States during the first two months of the year, according to a press release from the Swiss government. The press release, translated into English, does not state whether the material was sent to the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C.; however, the U.S. […]

The United Kingdom’s National Oceanographic Center (NOC) on Tuesday announced what it called a first-ever “deep-water experiment” that will simulate emissions from a carbon dioxide storage reservoir. The project, scheduled for 2018, is intended to provide additional demonstration of the safety of offshore carbon capture and storage projects, according to a NOC press release. It […]

India, the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, will double its coal tax, from 200 rupees per metric ton ($2.93 USD) to 400 rupees per ton ($5.86), Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced Monday in his budget 2016 speech to the nation’s parliament. The name of the tax will also be changed from the “Clean Energy […]

Japan will launch a carbon capture and storage pilot project off the coast of Hokkaido at the northern tip of the nation, Bloomberg reported Sunday. The pilot will begin in April with carbon captured from a refinery operated by Idemitsu Kosan Co. and injected into deep saline aquifers. The project will be the first full-chain […]

Presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voiced support for the Paris climate agreement during a town hall event Thursday in Kingstree, S.C. saying that she would devote “enormous” amounts of time and energy to ensuring the deal’s enforcement. “We need to really put our efforts into enforcing and carrying out the Paris […]

The governments of Canada and China on Thursday signed a Joint Declaration on Canada-China Clean Technology Cooperation. Under the declaration, the countries will share best practices to determine policy approaches to clean technology, address economic and social challenges through clean technology, explore the possibility of clean energy technology demonstrations, and facilitate collaboration between small and […]

Pat Host Defense Daily 2/26/2016 Russian sanctions are not impacting the Defense Department’s ability to acquire Russian-developed rocket engines it uses in launch, the Pentagon’s acquisition czar said Tuesday. Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L) Frank Kendall said DoD is waiting for the Treasury Department’s final decision on whether acquiring RD-180s […]

As home to two of the world’s first operating large-scale carbon capture and storage demonstration projects, Canada has earned a pat on the back, but the country should not rest on its laurels, the International Energy Agency said in its 2015 review of Canada’s energy policy. The agency recommended that Canada “maintain and expand the […]

In developing the Boundary Dam Unit 3 carbon capture and storage project, SaskPower, Saskatchewan’s principal electric utility, chose the most economical energy generation option available to meet baseload demand, representatives from the utility said during a Tuesday meeting of the provincial parliamentary Standing Committee on Crown and Central Agencies. Being grilled by Member of the […]

The University of Edinburgh and the University of Regina today signed a memorandum of understanding establishing up to three annual $10,000 (CAD) master’s degree scholarships for the study of carbon capture and storage. The scholarships will be funded with support from Saskatchewan utility SaskPower, developer of Boundary Dam Unit 3, the world’s first large-scale CCS […]

The biggest decommissioning and waste management opportunities in Europe over the next 10 years will be in the United Kingdom and Germany, according to Nuclear Energy Insider’s 2016 European Nuclear Decommissioning and Waste Management Market Survey. The survey featured responses from more than 200 international industry experts. The U.K. recorded 52.1 percent support as the top […]

The United Kingdom’s recent decision to abandon a £1 billion carbon capture and storage commercialization program is contradictory to the nation’s statutory target mandating an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2050, according to a report from the U.K. Energy Research Centre. “Without CCS gas must be steadily phased out […]

Regardless of the uncertain legal future for the Obama administration’s centerpiece climate regulation, the U.S. will sign the Paris Agreement on climate change, State Department Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern told reporters in Brussels last week, Reuters reported. “It is entirely premature, really premature to assume the Clean Power Plan will be struck […]

In the next five years, the U.K.’s Department and Energy and Climate Change “will consider the advice from Lord Oxburgh’s CCS Advisory Group as we explore our future approach to this technology for both power and industrial processes,” according to the agency’s Departmental Plan for 2015 to 2020. The single sentence, referencing the work of […]

GHG Daily 2/22/2016 Christiana Figueres, who helped steer nearly 200 nations to the creation of the world’s first universal climate agreement, will step down from her position as executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change on July 6. “The Paris Agreement is a historical achievement, built on years of increasing willingness to […]

Canada’s government offered comments late last week on the latest delay in its decision to move forward with Ontario Power Generation’s proposal to build a deep geologic repository for low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste near Lake Huron. On Thursday, Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna requested that OPG provide additional details on the project, including alternative […]

A plan for South Australia to take on 13 percent of the world’s nuclear waste and turn it into billions of dollars in economic benefit is viable. That’s one of the takeaways from a glowing interim report Australia’s Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission delivered this month, estimating the plan could mean AUS $5 billion in annual […]

Canada’s top environmental official is again delaying her decision on whether to move forward with Ontario Power Generation’s proposal to build a nuclear waste deep geologic repository near Lake Huron, amid growing concern from Canadian and American lawmakers and citizens. On Thursday, Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna requested that OPG present alternate […]

U.S. and Russian officials on Wednesday renewed claims that their governments had violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty and sparred over the consequences of aggressive rhetoric toward one another. Jon Wolfsthal, senior director for arms control and nonproliferation at the National Security Council, said at the ExchangeMonitor Nuclear Deterrence Summit that the U.S. seeks a resolution […]

If governments get an early start on efforts to limit global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Celsius, “the transition to a low-carbon economy would be gradual, allowing adequate time for the physical capital stock to be replenished and for technological progress to keep energy costs at reasonable levels,” according to a new report […]