Bellona nuclear digest. March 2024
A survey of events in the field of nuclear and radiation safety relating to Russia and Ukraine.
News
Publish date: April 15, 2011
Written by: Niklas Kalvø Tessem
News
The Fukushima nuclear disaster has sparked the already fierce debate in Germany about the nuclear energy production in the country. This paves the way for full German endorsement of Carbon dioxide Capture and Storage (CCS). Germany will need fossil energy sources to replace nuclear energy if this capacity is further limited, and at the same time the country needs to reach ambitious renewable energy targets.
– Those people who oppose nuclear power will have to support other technologies, and given solar panels and wind parks won’t immediately suffice, carbon capture and storage will have to be developed, said Michael Schaefer, a Frankfurt-based Equinet AG analyst, according to Bloomberg.
Importantly for Germany, CCS is also the only way to radically cut emissions from several industries such as cement, steel, chemicals and fertilizers: The production processes of these industries release carbon dioxide as part of the production processes, independently of their energy use. As Germany moves towards a zero-emission economy, CCS will be increasingly instrumental for such industries.
EU legislation
The draft law will implement the EU directive on the geological storage of carbon dioxide. The European Union in November opened bids for an initial 4.3 billion Euro in aid to capture carbon dioxide and store it underground and to promote renewable energy to help fight global warming.
Merkel’s plan, which now goes to parliament, allows for carbon-capture pilot projects and calls for a review of the technology’s potential in 2017. State governments are given the right to veto projects.
A survey of events in the field of nuclear and radiation safety relating to Russia and Ukraine.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has told the United Nations atomic energy watchdog that Russia plans to restart Ukraine’s embattled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, currently occupied by Russian troops and technicians, fueling worries about a serious nuclear accident on the front lines of a grinding military conflict.
Wednesday, April 10, 2024 | Brussels, Belgium – Today, the European Parliament approved the newly revised Construction Products regulation (CPR)...
Recent attacks on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant "mark the beginning of a new and gravely dangerous front of the war," the UN atomic agency's director general said last week.