NEI Nuclear Notes

The other day I mentioned that electricity seems more a human right than anything else and if it has to be generated by coal, natural gas or nuclear energy – or any other source – countries that want to electrify will do what they feel they have to do. But I wondered if I could offer a recent experience of this kind as an example – with a nuclear angle. Yes, sort of. A better example would be about a place with a considerable number of people without electricity. That’s not true of Thailand. But let’s see where this takes us. It starts with a story in the Thai Times The Thai National Shippers’ Council (TNSC) proposed nuclear power as an alternative energy solution to protect the country’s economy from future risk of power disruption. Power disruption! Even countries with electricity cannot always rely  on it and not being able to rely on it is almost as bad as not having any. And to the Shipper’s Council , it’s clearly untenable. The story that follows doesn’t reall...

European energy companies have dropped investment projects worth billions of euros because of European Commission plans to make them buy greenhouse gas emissions permits from 2013. While some EU countries - namely, Germany and Italy - are ratcheting down their nuclear activities, this is proving increasingly untenable as other means of producing electricity are becoming harder to finance. A new report on "Europe's Vulnerability to Energy Crises" found that the EU was more dependent on energy imports and more vulnerable to crises than at any time since the 1970s. "Nuclear power is a promising alternative for both reducing dependency on imports and fulfilling the commitment of all European countries to the Kyoto Protocol (on climate change)," the study said.   The Bangkok Post is hosting a debate on nuclear energy with two articles: Kopr Kritayakirana , an expert adviser with the Nuclear Power Programme Development Office, takes the affirmative while Witoon P...

Details from Business Week .