International

The United Kingdom’s National Audit Office has officially launched a review of the scrapping of the country’s £1 billion carbon capture and storage commercialization competition. The review, listed on the office’s website as a “work in progress,” is due out this summer. “The NAO will review the Government decision and how the Department [of Energy […]

SaskPower’s Boundary Dam Unit 3 carbon capture and storage project was in operation every day in January, according to a company update. On average, the plant has run only 56 percent of any month in the last year. “Our 100 [percent] online achievement for January allowed us to capture and sequester a record 84,976 tonnes […]

Under a new five-year country partnership strategy agreed to by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the People’s Republic of China, the bank will “support the government in realizing an ‘ecological civilization’ through environmental sustainability, pollution control, and climate change mitigation and adaptation measures.” This support includes promoting the deployment of carbon capture and storage […]

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 […]

Former French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has announced that he will resign his position as president of the 21st Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. In his role, which was intended to be a yearlong appointment, Fabius led the December 2015 climate negotiations that resulted in the adoption of […]

Saskatchewan’s New Democratic Party on Tuesday accused provincial Minister of the Economy Bill Boyd of the Saskatchewan Party of withholding documents regarding the province’s carbon capture and storage efforts for six weeks. According to a NDP release, at a Jan. 5 meeting of the legislative Standing Committee on Crown and Central Agencies, Boyd said he […]

South Australia’s plan to take on 13 percent of the world’s nuclear fuel 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 state revenue […]

A research team at the University of Sheffield hopes its findings from a two-year study on cement will improve design efforts as the United Kingdom works to develop its Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) by 2040, according to a press release. Led by Dr. Claire Corkhill, the researchers are analyzing the way in which cement, which […]

Under a memorandum of understanding signed last week during a trilateral energy ministers meeting in Canada, the U.S., Canada, and Mexico will increase collaboration and knowledge sharing across a number of clean energy areas, including low-carbon electricity; clean energy technologies; energy efficiency; carbon capture, use, and storage; climate change adaptation; and reducing emissions from the […]

Due to ongoing decarbonization efforts taking place outside of a regulatory framework, parties to the Paris Agreement appear unworried by the recent Supreme Court stay of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of the Obama administration’s climate change agenda. Speaking at a recent briefing hosted by the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, […]

A plan that is estimated to pump tens of billions of dollars into the South Australian economy and provide the state with free electricity and jobs is being dismissed as an “impossible dream” by a Canberra think tank. Introduced in 2015 as “the nuclear opportunity,” South Australia Sen. Sean Edwards’ plan would reportedly tap into Asia’s market […]

Karl Herchenroeder RW Monitor 2/12/2016 The Essex County Council has decided that an application to store nuclear waste along the coast at the Bradwell Power Station in the United Kingdom does not warrant a formal environmental impact assessment. In a Feb. 2 memorandum, the Essex County environmental planning office said the application submitted by plant […]

Karl Herchenroeder RW Monitor 2/12/2016 Despite objections from the state’s environmental agency, Oman Ama in Queensland, Australia, remains on the federal government’s shortlist of six as the country looks to develop its first permanent storage site for low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste. Queensland Natural Resources and Mines Minister Anthony Lynham has asked federal Resources Minister […]

IN THE STATE DEPARTMENT Secretary of State John Kerry highlighted U.S.-Russian arms control cooperation under the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) in a statement Friday on the fifth anniversary of the accord’s entry into force. “New START is more important now than when it went into effect. It gives us the confidence and level of […]

Five years after entry into force of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, it is clear that what was hoped to be the beginning of a new set of major U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control treaties will instead be the first and last under the Obama administration. President Barack Obama early in his tenure laid out […]

Gassnova, the Norwegian government’s carbon capture and storage enterprise, has appointed construction and project management firm AGR as a technical advisor. “AGR will support Gassnova by offering technical expertise across geoscience, reservoir and drilling disciplines, in addition to facilities and cost engineering,” according to a company release. “We have worked with the team at Gassnova […]

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia’s national science agency, sad this week it will be “shifting” its climate change research focus from modeling and monitoring to mitigation and adaptation. “Australia’s biggest challenges and opportunities lie in the health, prosperity and sustainability in the face of rapid global changes; climate is one piece […]

The Conservative government of the United Kingdom has been foolish in its treatment of carbon capture and storage, according to MP Angus MacNeil, a member of the Scottish National Party and chairman of the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee. “I think our penny-wise, pound-foolish government at Westminster in the U.K. just think […]

GHG Daily 2/10/2016 Parliament’s Energy and Climate Change Committee today released a report regarding the future of CCS in the U.K. and calling for the Department of Energy and Climate Change to “devise a new strategy for carbon capture and storage in conjunction with a new gas strategy, taking into account the infrastructure challenge in […]

GHG Daily 2/10/2016 Norway has found itself on the forefront of industrial CCS development.  “Norway’s main on-shore CO2 emission point sources all come from industrial sources so the decision to focus on these for CCS deployment is obvious. Of course the biggest point source is the Statoil Mongstad oil refinery, which proved too costly to […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Daily 2/9/2016 Working together, the nations of Mexico, the United States, and Canada can make great strides in developing carbon capture and storage technology, representatives from the nations’ energy departments said last week during the Global CCS Institute’s annual Americas Forum. “Because all of the countries in the trilateral agreement are, […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Daily 2/8/2016 The Paris Agreement, under which nearly 200 countries have committed to trying to limit global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius, has reaffirmed the importance of carbon capture and storage in limiting carbon emissions, according to Brad Page, CEO of the Global CCS Institute. The Paris Agreement’s expected […]

GHG Daily 2/8/2016 SaskPower, developer of the Boundary Dam Unit 3 Carbon capture and storage project in Saskatchewan, Canada, on Friday announced that it will team up with mining giant BHP Billiton to develop a CCS knowledge center at the Innovation Place Research Park in Regina, Saskatchewan. “SaskPower’s partnership with BHP Billiton will allow us […]

GHG Daily 2/8/2016 In the wake of the Conservative Party’s decision to scrap a £1 billion carbon capture and storage commercialization competition, the U.K. Parliament has prepared a report to be published Wednesday on the future of CCS in the nation. The report will be based on testimony received by the Energy and Climate Change […]

Secretary of State John Kerry highlighted U.S.-Russian arms control cooperation under the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) in a statement Friday on the fifth anniversary of the accord’s entry into force. “New START is more important now than when it went into effect. It gives us the confidence and level of oversight we need – […]

The State Department said Friday it would not request that the U.S.-Canada International Joint Commission (IJC) intercede in the dispute over a Canadian power company’s plans to build a low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste storage facility near Lake Huron.   U.S. Rep. Candice Miller (R-Mich.) said in a newspaper commentary last week that she had […]

Chris Schneidmiller RW Monitor 2/5/2016 U.S. Rep. Candice Miller (R-Mich.) this week said she has urged the State Department to partner with the Canadian government to ensure a deep geologic repository for low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste is not built less than a mile from Lake Huron in Ontario. The agency, though, does not appear […]

Alissa Tabirian NS&D Monitor 2/5/2016 With less than a year until the next president takes office, U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz on Tuesday highlighted the Obama administration’s key international nuclear security and nonproliferation achievements, as well as the political challenges that remain in the U.S. nuclear modernization program. During a Wilson Center address on nuclear […]

Staff Reports NS&D Monitor 2/5/2016 U.S. Republicans and Democrats both support the call for an updated assessment of potential threats before shipments of liquid highly enriched uranium from Canada cross international borders and travel to the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C. But the Department of Energy has not budged from its stance that existing studies show […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Daily 2/4/2016 Much of the developing world lives in energy poverty, and governments are likely to use fossil energy if it can help solve that challenge, a senior DOE official said Wednesday. For this reason it is imperative that carbon capture and storage technology advance, Melanie Kenderdine, director of the DOE’s […]