International

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 8/1/2014 Internationally, fossil fuels are remarkably under-taxed given their climate impacts, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said this week while presenting the findings of a new IMF study. “If you take coal for example, it’s about the dirtiest of all fuels you can think of. Yet, almost no […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 8/1/2014 The United Kingdom’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) released a white paper last week outlining the nation’s new approach to siting a geological disposal facility for the nation’s high-level nuclear waste. The white paper aims to rejuvenate the nation’s siting search after a planned site in West […]

Todd Jacobson NS&D Monitor 8/1/2014 As the State Department released its annual compliance report this week, formally accusing Russia of violating the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, Congressional lawmakers urged the Obama Administration to take action against Moscow. “We must take action to hold Russia accountable and bring Russia back into compliance with the treaty,” […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 8/1/2014 Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO) strategy to freeze contaminated water in trenches surrounding Fukushima’s Units 2 and 3 reactors is proving more difficult than initially thought, the company announced late last week.  TEPCO had planned to freeze the contaminated water in the trenches in an effort to avoid spreading […]

As the State Department released its annual compliance report yesterday, accusing Russia of violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, Congressional lawmakers urged the Administration to take action against Moscow. “We must take action to hold Russia accountable and bring Russia back into compliance with the treaty,” Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), the ranking member of the […]

The United States has determined that Russia has violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty by testing a ground-launched cruise missile in 2008 that is forbidden under the terms of the treaty, according to published reports yesterday. A report in the New York Times yesterday indicated that President Obama informed Russian President Vladimir Putin of the […]

Mike Nartker WC Monitor 7/25/2014 Rep. Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.) is calling on the Department of Energy to perform an Environmental Impact Statement before moving forward with a plan to ship liquid HEU from Canada to the Savannah River Site. DOE is looking to ship approximately 23,000 liters of U.S.-origin material from Atomic Energy of Canada […]

Nuclear Management Partners Names New Chair Mike Nartker WC Monitor 7/25/2014 Senior URS executive Tom Bishop has been named the new Chair of Nuclear Management Partners, the parent body organization for Sellafield Ltd. Bishop, who manages URS’ European operations, replaces Tom Zarges, who served as NMP Chair for the first five years of its contract […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 7/25/2014 Plans to develop an industrial carbon capture and storage network in the United Kingdom’s Teesside industrial center took a step forward late last week with the appointment of Pale Blue Dot Energy as project coordinator. The company brings the expertise to develop a business case for the proposed network […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 7/25/2014 The Mitsubishi Research Institute, the Japanese government decommissioning representative, has issued a Request for Proposals for studies to analyze innovative approaches for fuel debris retrieval at the Fukushima-Daiichi power plant. The fuel debris removal at Fukushima has been described as one of the most difficult aspects of the project, […]

Todd Jacobson NS&D Monitor 7/25/2014 The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has signed off on a new nuclear cooperation agreement with Vietnam, but the addition of several policy provisions added by Senate Democrats are unlikely to find support in the House. The Senate committee this week approved the pact in legislation that is largely based on […]

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has signed off on a new nuclear cooperation agreement with Vietnam. The committee on Tuesday approved the pact, which is largely based on legislation introduced earlier this year by committee chairman Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) that adds a 30-year expiration date to the agreement, and some future nuclear cooperation deals. […]

Senior URS executive Tom Bishop has been named the new Chair of Nuclear Management Partners, the parent body organization for Sellafield Ltd. Bishop, who manages URS’ European operations, replaces Tom Zarges, who served as NMP Chair for the first five years of its contract at Sellafield. “Since 2008 enormous work has been done by Sellafield […]

Spanish utility Iberdrola has joined GE Hitachi through a Memorandum of Understanding to work together on the deployment of GE’s PRISM technology, the company announced yesterday. The technology is currently being considered as a solution to the United Kingdom’s plutonium stockpile. It would re-process the plutonium to generate electricity from the used fuel. According to […]

Experts Urge U.S. Not to Withdraw From Treaty Todd Jacobson NS&D Monitor 7/18/2014 Frustrated with delays by the Obama Administration in taking action on potential Russian violations of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, two key Republicans this week urged the Administration to confront Moscow about the issue. In a July 17 letter to Secretary of […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 7/18/2014 With fossil fuels set to continue to play a large role in energy production for the foreseeable future, the development of carbon capture utilization and storage technology is vital to meeting global climate change abatement goals, International Energy Agency Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven told GHG Monitor on […]

Sellafield Making Headway on Sludge Plants Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 7/18/2014 After decades of having radioactive sludge sitting in unlined open air ponds at Sellafield, the site is commissioning two new plants aimed at removing and processing the material.  Site license company Sellafield Ltd. recently completed construction of the £240 million ($412 million) Sludge Packaging […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 7/18/2014 The Australian Government voted late this week to repeal the country’s carbon tax, under which high carbon emitters had to pay a price for each metric ton of carbon emitted. The tax had been in effect since 2012 and was approximately $23.4 per metric ton of carbon dioxide at […]

The Senate confirmed career foreign service officer Robert Wood by voice vote yesterday as the United States’ Representative to the Conference on Disarmament nearly seven months after he was first nominated to the position. Wood has been serving as the top U.S. official at the CD in an acting capacity, and his confirmation makes him […]

President Obama late last week nominated career diplomat John Francis Tefft as ambassador to the Russian Federation. He served as U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine from 2009 to 2013 and as the U.S. Ambassador to Georgia from 2005 to 2009. Since 2013 Tefft has been executive director of the RAND Business Leaders Forum at the RAND […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 7/11/2014 Unless significant steps are taken soon, the global mean temperature is set to rise 3.7 – 4.8 degrees Celsius, which could lead to catastrophe, according to a report released this week by the Deep Decarbonizatrion Pathways Project (DDPP). The report lays out pathways for several countries, including the United […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 7/11/2014 Summit Energy signed two memoranda of understanding this week with Chinese companies to increase collaboration and provide engineering services for Summit’s Texas Clean Energy Project (TCEP) carbon capture and storage venture. TCEP will be a 400MW coal integrated gasification combined cycle facility which will incorporate CCS. The project, when […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 7/11/2014 U.K-based 2Co Energy has entered into negations to sell its Don Valley Carbon Capture and Storage project to Norwegian company Sargas for “an undisclosed sum,” according to a company release. The project is a new-build 650 MW integrated gasification combined cycle plant planned to be built in South Yorkshire […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 7/11/2014 The United Kingdom’s White Rose project is poised to become Europe’s first full-scale carbon capture and storage project following the formal announcement this week that the venture has been awarded €300 million in funding from the second round of the European Commission’s New Entrants Reserve (NER) 300 program. White Rose […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 7/11/2014 Opposition is growing in South Carolina to the Department of Energy’s proposal to bring 900 kilograms of highly enriched uranium from Germany to the Savannah River Site for processing. This month local media in the Savannah River area ran editorials against the plan, and the proposal has become a campaign […]

Kenneth Fletcher NS&D Monitor 7/11/2014 As a new controversial civilian nuclear deal with Vietnam sits before Congress, some members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee this week voiced opposition to the agreement. The Obama Administration sent the Vietnam deal to Congress in May, where it must sit for 90 consecutive legislative days before entering into […]

The U.S. Department of State is hosting the fifth annual Generation Prague conference today, which addresses national security issues. Speakers include National Nuclear Security Administration Administrator Frank Klotz, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller, Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation Thomas Countryman, National Security Council Senior […]

TEPCO had to stop the cooling of a spent fuel pool in Unit 5 at the Fukushima Daiichi power station last weekend after a seawater leak was discovered in a pipe, the company announced yesterday. The leak has since been repaired partially, with some work still needed to be done. “After investigation on July 6, […]

Coming out against the proposed shipment of highly enriched uranium from Germany to the Savannah River Site for processing, the newspapers the Aiken Standard and The Augusta Chronicle penned editorials Sunday opposing the plan. The Department of Energy has launched an environmental assessment on the potential processing of 900 kilograms of U.S.-origin HEU from the […]

Sellafield Launching £1.5 Billion Procurement for Cleanup Suppliers Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 7/3/2014 Sellafield Limited is looking to “broaden the base” for long-term cleanup suppliers at the U.K. site under a new 10-year agreement that could be worth up to £1.5 billion ($2.5 billion), Sellafield Chief Decommissioning Officer Jack DeVine told WC Monitor this week. […]