Looking at Gazprom

Gazprom is not just a lucrative state-owned monopoly, but also a powerful instrument of Kremlin policy at home and abroad. It has undertaken an array of projects that have little to do with its stated corporate interests, but much to do with politics -- from bidding for the Olympics to buying up independent media, from sustaining unprofitable farms to subsidizing Russian industries with cheap energy.

It has also been at the center of Russia's foreign policy, used as a cudgel in recent disputes over gas prices with Ukraine and other neighbors. Its chief executive, Aleksei B. Miller, recently warned Europe not to block its further expansion into European markets, lest it decide to sell its natural gas elsewhere.

Something to think about.

UPDATE: Here's more from The Australian:

A STUDY by the West's energy watchdog is expected to show that expanding civil nuclear power offers the best hope of tackling global energy insecurity - a finding that would strengthen the hand of governments looking to build new reactors.

The International Energy Agency, which represents 26 developed countries, is to support a study highly likely to make the case for greater reliance on nuclear power. The body is likely to conclude that nuclear power also offers the best solution for those governments wishing to meet emissions targets.

The agency's move comes as European concerns over the stability of Russian gas supplies intensify. This week Gazprom, the world's biggest gas producer, threatened to ship gas elsewhere if its European expansion plans were blocked. Earlier this year Moscow halted gas supplies to Ukraine in a price dispute, cutting the flow of gas to Europe for a brief period.

Technorati tags: Energy, Electricity, Home Heating, Natural Gas, Russia, Ukraine, Electricity

Comments

Activists' Claims Distort Facts about Advanced Reactor Design

Below is from our rapid response team . Yesterday, regional anti-nuclear organizations asked federal nuclear energy regulators to launch an investigation into what it claims are “newly identified flaws” in Westinghouse’s advanced reactor design, the AP1000. During a teleconference releasing a report on the subject, participants urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend license reviews of proposed AP1000 reactors. In its news release, even the groups making these allegations provide conflicting information on its findings. In one instance, the groups cite “dozens of corrosion holes” at reactor vessels and in another says that eight holes have been documented. In all cases, there is another containment mechanism that would provide a barrier to radiation release. Below, we examine why these claims are unwarranted and why the AP1000 design certification process should continue as designated by the NRC. Myth: In the AP1000 reactor design, the gap between the shield bu...

How many nuclear plants does it take to meet the world's energy needs?

Several weeks ago Joshua Pearce at Clarion University in Pennsylvania released a study titled “ Thermodynamic limitations to nuclear energy deployment as a greenhouse gas mitigation technology .” In the study he stated... nuclear energy production would have to increase by 10.5% per year from 2010 to 2050 to both replace fossil-fuel-energy use and meet the future energy demands. This line, of course, made the headlines and has been picked up by several outlets and blogs . When looking into his calculations for this statement, he made one assumption error that overstated the above sentence by nearly a factor of three. Page 121, Section 4.1 of the study states: Richard Smalley pointed out that in 2004, the global economy consumed the equivalent of 220 million barrels of oil per day, which converted into electricity terms is the equivalent of 14.5 TeraWatts (TW), or 14,500,000 MegaWatts (MW) (2005). … With a nuclear plant having about 1000 MW (1 GW) of capacity, we would need 14,500...

What Happens During a Refueling Outage?

You may have noticed over the past few weeks that a number of nuclear plants are shut down for refueling outages or are resuming operations after just returning from one. This type of routine outage usually occurs in the spring or fall when electricity demand is low so that nuclear reactors can replace about one-third of the spent fuel rods with new fuel and conduct other routine maintenance and repairs at the plant. To get a better sense of how refueling works at a nuclear energy facility, I spoke with Marcus Nichol, NEI’s senior project manager for used fuel storage and transportation, and asked him to explain the basics. Why does a nuclear plant need to replace one-third of its fuel? Nichol: The main purpose of a refueling outage is to replace older fuel that is depleted—meaning it can no longer efficiently produce energy from nuclear fission reactions—with new fuel. This “used fuel” has typically been used in the reactor for four-and-a-half to six years before it is pe...

NEI Nuclear Notes

Search This Blog