Hiroshi Matsubara | Tokyo | May 21

Asahi Shimbun - Despite growing international concerns over the state of spent fuel rods at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, two government experts said on May 21 that there are no plans to speed up their scheduled removal by 2015.

Speaking at a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo, the government apparently wanted to get the message out to the world that the No. 4 reactor at the plant, which houses more than 1,500 nuclear fuel rods, could withstand a similar strike to last year's Great East Japan Earthquake.

John M. Broder & Matthew L. Wald | Washington | May 21

NYT - Gregory B. Jaczko, whose three-year tenure as chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been marked by bitter battles with colleagues and with Congress, announced Monday that he would step down as soon as a successor was confirmed.

The White House said it would name a successor “soon,” but it is unlikely that anyone will be confirmed to succeed Dr. Jaczko for many months, ensuring continued turmoil at the deeply divided agency. The commission’s inspector general is preparing a report to be issued in coming weeks that is expected to repeat some of the charges of mismanagement and verbal abuse of subordinates that have isolated Dr. Jaczko from other members.

Thomas K. Grose | London | May 18

National Geographic News - This summer at the largest urban mall in Europe, visitors may notice something different at their feet. Twenty bright green rubber tiles will adorn one of the outdoor walkways at the Westfield Stratford City Mall, which abuts the new Olympic stadium in east London.

The squares aren't just ornamental. They are designed to collect the kinetic energy created by the estimated 40 million pedestrians who will use that walkway in a year, generating several hundred kilowatt-hours of electricity from their footsteps. That's enough to power half the mall's outdoor lighting.

Frank Dohmen & Alexander Jung | May 19

Speigel Online - With the planned Nabucco natural gas pipeline in southern Europe hitting snag after snag, Russian natural gas giant Gazprom is considering the construction of a second Baltic Sea pipeline to go with the just-finished Nord Stream. With unconventional natural gas from the US flooding the market, however, the strategy is not without risk.

Yoko Kubota | Tokyo | May 14

Reuters - Tokyo Electric Power Co posted an annual loss of almost $10 billion as compensation claims for the Fukushima nuclear disaster brought it to the brink of bankruptcy and fuel costs soared after idling all its atomic plants.

Japan's biggest utility said on Monday that its net loss for the year to March 31 was 781.6 billion yen ($9.8 billion), above the consensus estimate of a 692.6 billion yen loss in a survey of three analysts by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Angela Monaghan | Washington | May 14

The Telegraph - As oil prices remain at historically high levels of around $110 (£68) a barrel, the working paper warned a combination of rising demand and constrained supply could have major consequences.

"Our prediction of small further increases in world oil production comes at the expense of a near doubling, permanently, of real oil prices over the coming decade," the report's authors concluded.

"This is uncharted territory for the world economy, which has never experienced such prices for more than a few months."

Quite a few rightwing commentators are making waves today about a Government Accountability Office statement which says (PDF) that:

The Green River
Formation—an assemblage of over 1,000 feet of sedimentary rocks that lie beneath parts of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming—contains the world’s largest deposits of oil shale. USGS estimates that the Green River Formation contains about 3 trillion barrels of oil, and about half of this may be recoverable, depending on available technology and economic conditions. The Rand Corporation, a nonprofit research organization, estimates that 30 to 60 percent of the oil shale in the Green River Formation can be recovered. At the midpoint of this estimate, almost half of the 3 trillion barrels of oil would be recoverable. This is an amount about equal to the entire world’s proven oil reserves.

There reactions are all along the same lines: this shale-oil reserve could "by itself supply domestic oil consumption for more than 200 years", and "will Obama, in a possible second term, block the development of the resources that can assure America’s economic supremacy for generations?"

Typically simplistic. If only it were that easy.

IBT, By Yifei Zhang, May 7

China will soon start drilling from an advanced new oil platform designed to tap into deep-sea petroleum resources in the South China Sea, according to reports in the country's official media on Monday.

The development is major technological progress for China, which claims to have developed the new platform indigenously through its state-owned corporation, China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) [NYSE: CEO, Hong Kong: 0883]. It also occurs in an area where China has clashed recently with neighbors including the Philippines.

Michael Klare | May 10 | Tom Dispatch

The Energy Wars Heat Up: Six Recent Clashes and Conflicts on a Planet Heading Into Energy Overdrive

Conflict and intrigue over valuable energy supplies have been features of the international landscape for a long time. Major wars over oil have been fought every decade or so since World War I, and smaller engagements have erupted every few years; a flare-up or two in 2012, then, would be part of the normal scheme of things. Instead, what we are now seeing is a whole cluster of oil-related clashes stretching across the globe, involving a dozen or so countries, with more popping up all the time. Consider these flash-points as signals that we are entering an era of intensified conflict over energy.

From the Atlantic to the Pacific, Argentina to the Philippines, here are the six areas of conflict -- all tied to energy supplies -- that have made news in just the first few months of 2012:

Hiroko Tabuchi | Tokyo | May 9

NYT - Japan is ready to nationalize Tokyo Electric Power, the operator of the ravaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, under a 1 trillion yen ($12.5 billion) bailout plan that was approved on Wednesday.

The Japanese government has been scrambling to keep the utility company from collapsing so it can meet the billions of dollars in compensation claims and decommission the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi, all while continuing to provide the Tokyo metropolis with stable electricity.

The government is also eager to push through reforms to restore public trust in a company that has played a vital role in Japan’s energy policy but has also admitted safety lapses and cover-ups at its power plants. The $12.5 billion bailout comes at a time when the government itself is carrying a debt burden that has mushroomed to more than twice the size of the economy.

Wendy Koch | May 4

USA TODAY - As oil and gas drilling explodes nationwide, the Obama administration today proposed rules requiring the disclosure of chemicals used to extract these deposits on public and Indian lands. Environmentalists say the rules don't go far enough but an industry group says they may stifle job growth with "bureaucratic red tape."

The proposed rules require companies to disclose the chemicals used during hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, but do so after (not before) they finish operations. About 90% of wells drilled on federal and Indian lands use this drilling process, which blasts chemical-laced water and sand deep below ground to release oil and natural gas trapped in rock formations.

ouuu scary,could hurt job growth.

WaPo

TransCanada expected to reapply for Keystone pipeline permit as soon as Friday

“With Nebraska now on board and the application being re-filed, the president has lost his always-flimsy excuse for blocking this job-creating project,” the statement said. “With energy security at stake and jobs on the line, and he should listen to the American people, not just his political base, and approve it immediately.”(Boehner)

“The fundamental facts remain; Americans are being asked to put clean water at risk for an extreme form of energy that will add nothing to our energy security,” Kleeb wrote in an e-mail. “We are subsidizing this extreme form of energy to boot with over 1 billion of our tax payer dollars used to retrofit a Saudi-owned refinery for their tarsands headed straight to the export market. A transparent process will show TransCanada’s risky pipeline is not in our national interest.”

ENE News, May 1

To: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon

An Urgent Request on UN Intervention to Stabilize the Fukushima Unit 4 Spent Nuclear Fuel

Recently, former diplomats and experts both in Japan and abroad stressed the extremely risky condition of the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel pool and this is being widely reported by world media. Robert Alvarez, Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), who is one of the best-known experts on spent nuclear fuel, stated that in Unit 4 there is spent nuclear fuel which contains Cesium-137 (Cs-137) that is equivalent to 10 times the amount that was released at the time of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. Thus, if an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain, this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire involving nearly 10 times the amount of Cs-137 released by the Chernobyl accident.

Nearly all of the 10,893 spent fuel assemblies at the Fukushima Daiichi plant sit in pools vulnerable to future earthquakes, with roughly 85 times more long-lived radioactivity than released at Chernobyl.

Rob Edwards | May 2

The Guardian - Hundreds of sites across England and Wales could be contaminated with radioactive waste from old military bases and factories, according to a new government report.

Up to 1,000 sites could be polluted, though the best guess is that between 150 and 250 are, says a report on contaminated land by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc), released last month, but previously unreported.

This is far higher than previous official estimates, with evidence from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) last December suggesting that there were just 15 sites in the UK contaminated with radium from old planes and other equipment.

Stephen C Webster | Apr 30

Raw Story - What if your source of electricity also gave you clean drinking water?

That’s the promise of new technology developed by the French engineering firm Eole Water, first conceived in the late 90s by a man who collected water from his air conditioner. He reasoned that if an air conditioner could help him accumulate water, so could other types of machines, so he set about merging the production of electricity and water.

Today, that dream is alive and well. Eole’s turbines are currently undergoing rigorous tests in Abu Dhabi following months of development and fine tuning in France. The company says that each turbine is capable of producing up to 1,000 liters of clean drinking water per day, or about 62 per hour, simply by filtering moisture out of the air and funneling it to a storage tank below. video at link

Juba | Apr 28

AFP - China has agreed to loan South Sudan eight billion dollars for infrastructure development, Juba government spokesman Barnaba Mariel Benjamin said Saturday.

"It will fund roads, bridges, hydropower, agriculture and telecommunications projects... within the next two years", he said, giving details of a visit this week to China by South Sudan's President Salva Kiir.

"Details (of the projects) will be defined by the ministers of the two countries and by the Chinese firms in charge of the work," the spokesman said.

China is the largest purchaser of oil from South Sudan and is also a longstanding business partner of Sudan from which it also buys oil.

As a result of independence the south took with it about 75 percent of the formerly united Sudan's oil production worth billions of dollars.

win win win for China

Ongoing border disputes between Sudan and South Sudan over unresolved oil revenue issues have reached a violent, near-critical mass in recent days (three guesses who's bearing the brunt of the clashes). So it's not surprising that China, a key patron & trading partner of both warring states (and very much concerned with keeping investments in local energy infrastructure stable & on track), is highly uncomfortable with the burgeoning tension. As South Sudan president Salva Kiir Mayardit reportedly cuts short his diplomatic mission to Beijing to deal with the growing crisis at home, Beijing (with a li'l help from Washington -- lead from behind, baby) has stepped up diplomatic efforts to stabilize the situation.

An unprecedented look at the disastrous handling of the accident at TEPCO's nuclear power station explains why Japan still doesn't trust nukes.

By Bill Powell and Hideko Takayama, April 20

FORTUNE -- More than a year has passed since a massive earthquake and a series of tsunamis triggered the worst accident at a nuclear power plant since Chernobyl in 1986, but the epic debacle at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station remains front and center in Japan, at the very core of a historic debate over the future of nuclear energy—one that comes down to a fundamental question: Should nuclear power, which prior to the accident last year generated 30% of the electricity for the world's third-largest economy, have any future at all in Japan?

Marc Burleigh | Tehran | Apr 11

AFP - Just days before crucial talks with world powers on its disputed nuclear programme, Iran was presenting a defiant face on Wednesday, announcing the halt of oil exports to EU nations and warning the West to drop its "language of force."

At the same time, chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili was promising to lay out "new initiatives" at the talks due to take place in Istanbul on Saturday -- as long as the nations on the other side of the table employed a "constructive approach."

The declarations underlined the high stakes involved in the negotiations, which are widely seen as a last chance to defuse the increasingly tense international showdown over Iran.

Two Iranian broadcasters, Al-Alam and Press TV, reported that Iranian oil exports to Germany had been halted and exports to Italy could soon likewise be stopped, without identifying their sources.

On Tuesday, the two networks said crude exports to Spain had also ended, expanding on a February decision to stop oil sales to France and Britain.

Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi also said on Tuesday that Iran was no longer supplying oil to Greece.

Steve Levine cautions against the "age of irrational petro-exuberance" at Foreign Policy magazine.

The peak of cheap oil is still behind us but in any case the oil we have largely needs to stay in the ground if we're not to be destroyed as a civilization by climate change.

Pierre Bertrand | San Diego | April 9

IBT - A U.S. Geological Survey team is preparing ready to publish a report that has drawn a link between hydraulic fracturing and an increase in earthquakes in the U.S.

The study's findings will be a topic of discussion later this month when the Seismological Society of America meets in San Diego.

Beijing | April 7

PTI/ZeeNews.com (India) - China is updating its atomic emergency and safety plan and building capacity to handle nuclear accidents in the aftermath of Fukushima nuclear disaster to handle such emergencies, officials said on Saturday.

The two-day meeting of the national nuclear emergency coordination committee which concluded today discussed the revision of China's nuclear emergency plan, as well as the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15) for nuclear emergencies. An expert panel set up yesterday was expected to provide professional advice to the committee.

The Wall Street Journal, By Jim Krane, April 3

Doha, Qatar - President Obama’s sanctions plan on Iran follows an old Mideast policy playbook. Western moves against an oil-exporting country take place with the cooperation of Saudi Arabia. U.S. strategy requires the Saudis to ramp up production and replace Iranian exports in hope of avoiding a damaging spike in prices.

It’s a familiar scenario: At one time or another, the Saudis have been called upon to replace exports from Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and, most recently, Libya. The idea is to have your cake and eat it—to meet U.S. foreign policy goals without disrupting oil markets and antagonizing the American motorist.

But the old playbook may have to be torn up. This time Saudi Arabia is struggling to assume its usual role as the oil market’s swing supplier. This can be seen in current market tightness and in U.S. gasoline prices, which are edging toward $4, a dangerous prospect at election time.

David Shukman | April 2

BBC - A renewed attempt to develop ways of making power stations greener is set to be unveiled by the government.

For the second time in five years, £1 billion will be offered for schemes to trap and bury carbon dioxide.

An earlier competition collapsed after all nine entrants pulled out, most citing cost as the main problem.

Risa Maeda & Osamu Tsukimori | Tokyo | March 23

Reuters - Japanese firms are looking at building several geothermal plants in a volcanic zone in the area worst hit by last year's nuclear disaster, a project that could gain momentum after the government eased restrictions on drilling this week.

The head of a group of firms that have studied the potential of a geothermal project in Fukushima said on Friday a consortium of about 10 companies would meet local people by early May to explain their plans to build plants with a total capacity of 270 megawatts, which would be Japan's biggest.

The consortium plans to work with local communities, including those who run hotels and inns at hot springs, to develop geothermal energy, Masaho Adachi, the chairman of Japan Geothermal Developers' Council said.