nuclear-news

From Bankwatch Network-Bankwatch.org:
“Operations suspended at one Ukrainian nuclear unit, as wider safety doubts persist Bankwatch Mail, May 14, 2015

Citing 33 safety issue failings, at the end of April Ukraine’s nuclear regulator took the decision to suspend operations at Unit 2 of the South Ukraine nuclear power plant by a May 12 deadline, the date marking the end of the plant’s design lifetime. Under the terms of the Ukrainian State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate Council’s decision, should the state-owned nuclear energy operator Energoatom wish to resume the unit’s operations beyond its design lifetime it will have to implement all necessary measures by May 2017.

Yet the same Unit 2 reactor remains part of Ukraine’s energy arithmetic for this year’s winter period. As the Ukrainian government has no ‘plan B’, Bankwatch member group the National Ecological Centre of Ukraine (NECU) is concerned that both the operator and the regulator are…

Highlights from: “Potential Withdrawal of Uranium Mining from the Grand Canyon Region, AZ“, by John Hoffmann and Bob Hart USGS Arizona Water Science Center June 8, 2010










Full presentation here: http://www.epa.gov/osp/tribes/NatForum10/ntsf10_2m_Hoffmann.pdf

Additional information: http://www.grandcanyontrust.org/uranium-mining

https://turtletalk.wordpress.com/2015/04/20/ninth-circuit-briefs-in-challenge-to-interior-withdrawal-of-grand-canyon-lands-from-uranium-mining/

Canadian Penny Stock Quaterra which filed suit to force uranium mining upon the Grand Canyon argues: “….the risk of environmental degradation to the Grand Canyon watershed was determined to be low…. Whether the District Court erred in finding that the withdrawal could be justified on the need to mitigate Indian resources, when existing law and rules protect historical, archeological, cultural, and sacred sites and traditional use areas and consistent precedent holds that the beliefs tied to aboriginal areas are not a valid basis to prohibit otherwise lawful uses of federal land.”
[Our comment: Quaterra is even in the wrong country and continent! This must be their generic complaint? America…

Opinion:

¶ “Big Energy is dying as $90 trillion low-carbon world emerges” – The aging fossil-fuel industry, Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Gas, doesn’t want you to hear the relentless drumbeat leading investors away: Falling stock prices, rising costs, spills, depleting reserves. But Sustainable Energy is pushed them aside. [MarketWatch]

World:

¶ The French gas utility named Engie (formerly GDF Suez) is developing new geothermal projects in the Paris, France, area to the tune of 50 MW, which will bring the company’s total geothermal capacity there to 100 MW. A single plant, Noisy-le-Sec, has a capacity of 10 MW. The new addition will be done in 2016. [CleanTechnica]

The Eiffel Tower and the Champ de Mars. Photo by Wladyslaw, Wikimedia Commons.

¶ The cabinet of Maharashtra has approved the state’s new renewable energy policy which envisages addition of 14.4 GW of capacity by 2020. Solar power…