Turkey and Russia signed agreements on Wednesday for the construction of Turkey’s first nuclear power plant and the development of a pipeline project to carry Russian oil from the Black Sea, through Turkey to the Mediterranean.

Turkey, a U.S. ally, served as NATO’s foremost base during the Cold War, but its relations with Moscow have rapidly developed since the fall of the Soviet Union. Both countries have vowed to triple their bilateral trade volume to around $100 billion in the next five years.

The power plant construction, near Turkey’s Mediterranean coastal town of Akkuyu, is expected to take seven years, said Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who oversaw the signing with visiting Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

The two leaders also signed an agreement to work on a pipeline project that would pump Russian oil from the Black Sea port of Samsun in northern Turkey to the Ceyhan oil terminal on the Mediterranean in southern Turkey, where an oil refinery would be set up. From there, the oil would be shipped to Europe.

The goal of the project is to bypass Turkey’s Bosporus strait to alleviate the congested oil tanker traffic through the narrow waterway that bisects Istanbul en route from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.

Russia’s gas exports have made it the second largest trading partner of Turkey. Both sides have recently been working to improve their diplomatic relations and trade ties.

“By taking these steps, Turkey is taking its position as an energy hub to a much different level,” Erdogan said. “The solidarity with Russia on this issue is of utmost importance.”

On Wednesday, Turkey and Russia also agreed to mutually lift entry visa requirements for visits of up to 30 days in an effort to boost tourism and business. About 3 million Russian tourists visit Turkey annually.

“It is a historical agreement that will before anything else ease the life of millions of people,” Medvedev said.

Renewable energy is becoming a more significant player in the U.S. energy dynamic, according to latest figures from the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

In its latest Monthly Energy Review, the EIA says renewable energy production made up over 10% of total U.S. energy production in 2009, a 5.5% increase over 2008 levels and a nearly 16% increase from 2007 levels.

Biomass contributed the most, accounting for 51% of all renewable energy production, followed by hydropower at 34.2%.  Next in line were wind, geothermal and solar power, contributing 8.9%, 4.7% and 1.2% respectively.

At this stage, renewable energy contributes almost as much as nuclear power to the nation’s energy mix.

Read more here…

Energy consumption from the developing world is to overtake that of the developed economies by 2015 – some countries are addressing it, some are still in denial. The article below is just a taste of things to come and illustrates how even the oil producing UAE is aware of these issues.

The UAE signed a deal in December 2009 with a Korean consortium to build four nuclear power reactors in the UAE, with the first scheduled to be operational in 2017.
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Electricity demand is likely to triple in the UAE by 2020 and nuclear energy will play a key role in meeting future needs, a top official has said.

UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan said the country’s interest in developing nuclear energy was “motivated by the need to develop additional sources of electricity to meet future demand projections and to ensure the continued rapid development of its economy”.

“Analysis conducted by official UAE entities has concluded that national annual peak demand for electricity is likely to triple by 2020, reflecting a cumulative annual growth rate of roughly 9 percent,” he said in comments published by news agency WAM.

He added: “In evaluating different options to meet this demand, nuclear energy emerged as a proven, environmentally promising and commercially competitive option which could make a significant contribution to the UAE’s economy and future energy security.”

AFP, 13 February 2010 – Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has broken from philanthropic work fighting poverty and disease to take on another threat to the world’s poor — climate change.

“Energy and climate are extremely important to these people,” Gates told Friday a TED Conference audience packed with influential figures including the founders of Google and climate champion Al Gore.

Click here to view his speech

“The climate getting worse means many years that crops won’t grow from too much rain or not enough, leading to starvation and certainly unrest.”

Gates said he is backing development of “terrapower” reactors that could be fueled by nuclear waste from disposal facilities or generated by today’s power plants.

He broke down variables in a carbon-dioxide-culprit formula, homing in on a conclusion that the answer to the problem is a source of energy that produces no carbon.

“The formula is a very straight forward one,” Gates said. “More carbon dioxide equals temperature increase equals negative effects like collapsed ecosystems. We have to get to zero.”

To dramatize his point, Gates pulled out a large jar of fireflies in playful flashback to when he unleashed mosquitoes on a TED audience a year earlier while discussing battling malaria.

“They won’t bite,” Gates joked of the fireflies. “As a matter of fact, they might not even leave this jar.”

Gates touted terrapower as more reliable than wind or solar, cleaner than burning coal or natural gas, and safer than current nuclear plants.

“With the right materials approach it could work,” Gates said. “Because you burn 99 percent of the waste, it is kind of like a candle.”

Nuclear waste fed into a terrapower reactor would potentially burn for decades before being exhausted.

“Today we are always refueling the reactor so lot of controls and lots of things that can go wrong,” Gates said. “That is not good. With this, you have a piece of fuel, think of it like a log, that burns for 60 years and it is done.”

Researching and testing terrapower will cost hundreds of millions of dollars, with the building of a test reactor likely to cost in the billions.

Once the technology is proven, market forces will drive down costs, Gates predicted.

Work on terrapower hos been done in France and Japan, and there has been interest in India, Russia, China and the United States, according to the famed philanthropist.

Gates said that if he were allowed a single wish in the coming 50 years, it would be a global “zero carbon” culture.

“If I could pick a president or a vaccine, which I love, this is the wish I would pick,” he said.

“We need energy miracles. The microprocessor and Internet are miracles.

This is a case where we have to drive and get the miracle in a short time-line.”

Gates dismissed climate change skeptics, saying terrapower would render arguments moot because the energy produced would be cheaper than pollution-spewing methods used today.

“The skeptics will accept it because it is cheaper,” Gates said. “The might wish it did put out CO2, but they will take it.”

The world is at “an extraordinary moment” in the struggle to save the climate balance, according to former US vice president Gore.

A vital step will be to put a price on carbon dioxide emissions so the cost of polluting the air gets factored into the global economy.

Legislation to do that has cleared the US House of Representatives and must fight its way through the Senate, where it needs only a few more supporters to send the law on to the willing pen of President Barack Obama, Gore said.

“A price on carbon dioxide emissions can help us make the right decision, not only on nuclear, solar, and wind but on the gamut of energy alternatives available to us,” Gore said.

Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection has organized groups in 22 US states with “swing senators” in the hope getting the legislation passed “before the political season gets completely wild.”

“These next few months represent the last feasible political window for quite some time to get this done,” Gore said. “So much is at stake we have to double down.”

This article is reproduced with kind permission of Agence France-Presse (AFP) For more news and articles visit the AFP website.

President Obama speaking at the IBEW Local 26 in Lanham, Md. in support of American nuclear energy:

“We need to look no further than the workers and apprentices who are standing behind me to see the future that’s possible when it comes to clean energy.

It’s a future in which skilled laborers are helping us lead in burgeoning industries. It’s a future in which renewable electricity is fueling plug-in hybrid cars and energy-efficient homes and businesses. It’s a future in which we’re exporting homegrown energy technology instead of importing foreign oil. And it’s a future in which our economy is powered not by what we borrow and spend but what we invent and what we build.

That’s the bright future that lies ahead for America. And it’s one of–it’s a future that my administration is striving to achieve each and every day. We’ve already made the largest investment in clean energy in history as part of the Recovery Act–an investment that is expected to create more than 700,000 jobs across America–manufacturing advanced batteries for more fuel-efficient vehicles, upgrading the power grid so that it’s smarter and it’s stronger, doubling our nation’s capacity to generate renewable energy. And after decades in which we have done little to increase the efficiency of cars and trucks, we’ve raised fuel economy standards to reduce our dependence on foreign oil while helping folks save money at the pump…

“So make no mistake: Whether it’s nuclear energy, or solar or wind energy, if we fail to invest in the technologies of tomorrow, then we’re going to be importing those technologies instead of exporting them. We will fall behind. Jobs will be produced overseas, instead of here in the United States of America. And that’s not a future that I accept.”

Read the full text of the President’s speech…

In his first State of the Union address, President Obama spoke in no uncertain terms of the important role clean energy and energy efficiency must play in the United States economy now, and in the years to come.

The President emphasized the connection between investing in clean energy and job creation in the United States, which has been struggling with high unemployment.  Upgrading aging and inefficient infrastructure and expanding the reach of renewable energy and smart grid systems will be crucial to reviving the U.S. economy.  “We should put more Americans to work building clean energy facilities and give rebates to Americans who make their homes more energy-efficient,” he said.

Obama spoke favorably of the impact the Recovery Act has had on new energy technologies.  Under the sweeping legislation, the Department of Energy (DOE) has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into research and development initiatives for advanced biofuels, wind, solar, geothermal, advanced batteries, and smart grid systems.  These investments are paying off, Obama said, as new factories, manufacturing plants and power installations enter project pipelines all around the country, putting more Americans to work.  Obama also expressed support for construction of new, safe nuclear energy plants and for exploration of sites for offshore oil and natural gas drilling.

President Obama offered praise to the House of Representatives for passing the Waxman-Markey climate bill, and urged the Senate to break its inertia and move quickly on the legislation in its chambers.  “Washington has been telling us to wait for decades, even as the problem has grown worse,” he warned.  We need to pass a “comprehensive energy and climate with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.”   Acknowledging critics who say the timing is not right for such complex energy and climate legislation, Obama reiterated the urgency of the issue, forcefully saying “the nation which leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy.  And America must be that nation.”

Frustrated with bureaucratic red-tape and an “exhaustive planning process,” Britain is planning to speed up the process for approving large wind farms and nuclear power plants.

According to Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband, decisions for nuclear plants larger than 50MW and offshore wind farms over 100MW will now be completed in one year or less.  ”It serves neither the interests of energy security, the interests of the low carbon transition, nor the interests of people living in areas where infrastructure may be built for the planning process to take years to come to a decision.”

Britain has named 10 sites where new nuclear reactors could be built.  Approximately 11GW of nuclear energy is currently installed in Britain, and the nation aims to add 5GW more by 2030.  Read the full article…

Energy Agency Pushes for More Inclusive Trading Mechanism

The International Energy Agency (IEA) believes that worldwide carbon trading mechanisms should be expanded to include nuclear and carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects in the developing world.  At present, these projects are not covered under the current trading system which exists under the Kyoto Protocol.  The Agency praised the carbon trading scheme for the new investments in low- or zero-carbon technology it has encouraged, but insists that more must be done in order to limit carbon emissions from the world’s power industries, which are growing to accommodate a rapidly expanding population.  The IEA’s latest report says the power generation sector is at the “core” of the “world-wide challenge to limit climate change,” and is responsible for 41% of global energy-related CO2 emissions.  IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka pointed out that CO2 emissions from power generation industries in developing countries have grown 90% since 1990, and could double by 2030.  He is encouraging negotiators at the upcoming Copenhagen climate talks to seriously consider including nuclear and CCS projects into new carbon trading plans to allow for “broader access to the ‘carbon market,’ to introduce a price on CO2 emissions, and create incentives for most efficient and low-CO2 generation technologies” that can be implemented across the developing world, where power generation is increasing at the most rapid rate.

India to Generate 21,000MW Nuclear Power by 2020

India is speeding up development of domestic nuclear power and aims to generate 21,180 MW of electricity by the year 2020, said Mr. S. Kailas, associate director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre.  Over the next 50 years, increased population and industrial growth in India will necessitate a 10-fold increase in electricity generation capacity.  He expects nuclear energy to play a large role in supplying that electricity.  Currently, 17 operational reactors at six different sites around the country provide 4,120 MW of capacity.  Three pressurized “heavy water” reactors as well as two “light water” reactors are currently under construction.  Nuclear energy has “come of age” said Mr. ML Savadatti, Vice Chairman of Karnataka State Council for Higher Education.  Compared to conventional sources of power, nuclear provides an economically viable alternative that will continue to be important until “major breakthroughs are accomplished in the areas of wind and solar energy,” he remarked.