After passing through a security gate, the van descends into a tunnel that burrows under the forests of Olkiluoto, an island off Finland’s west coast. The wheels crunch on crushed stone as a gray, wet October day gives way to darkness.
“Welcome to Onkalo,” deadpans Antti Mustonen, a geologist here. Onkalo—“cavity” or “pit” in Finnish—will be the world’s first permanent disposal site for high-level nuclear waste, and a triumph for Finland.
Buyers scrambling for supplies of potash and uranium are looking to Canada to fill gaps caused by the war in Ukraine.
The northern nation has been approached by those seeking potash and uranium, said Canada’s Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson. The country is one of the world’s main sources of the two commodities and buyers are anxious to secure supplies after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disrupted trade flows.
As the Ukraine crisis continues to push fuel prices up, France’s championing of nuclear power as a way of ensuring its energy sovereignty sounds great. But a group of researchers says it’s a red herring given France imports all its uranium.
President Emmanuel Macron announced late last year that France would begin building new nuclear plants. “To guarantee France’s energy independence and achieve our objectives, in particular carbon neutrality in 2050, we will for the first time in decades relaunch the construction of nuclear reactors in our country,” Macron said.
The Saskatchewan provincial government, along with the governments of Ontario, New Brunswick and Alberta, has announced a strategic plan outlining a path towards the use of small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), which it hopes can advance SaskPower’s goal of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Currently, 76 per cent of electricity in Saskatchewan is generated by fossil fuels, according to the province. “Saskatchewan will not make a final decision on whether it will be building an SMR for several years but SaskPower has been working diligently on planning work to help inform that decision,” SaskPower Minister Don Morgan said at a Monday morning press conference.
The Liberal government is being accused of sending conflicting messages about the nuclear industry and how it can help adapt to a green environment. The week the Liberal government put $27.2 million into a promising new small modular nuclear reactor — but at the same time its green bond program, meant to boost environmentally-friendly programs, specifically excludes investments in nuclear power.
The conflict shows mixed support at best for the industry, say critics. Chris Keefer, president of Canadians for Nuclear Energy, said excluding nuclear from green bonds did not make sense, because Ontario had shown it could help decarbonize a grid.
I live high on a cliff, within sight of two extremes of evolution, both rare. One is a set of dinosaur footprints on the foreshore of the Bristol Channel, and the other is a nuclear power station under construction across the water in Somerset.
The footprints are properly old, being left in Triassic mudstones by one of the first Sauropods perhaps 210 million years ago (I find it helpful to visualize this time span as numbers being counted very quickly for almost three years; with Homo sapiens arriving one day ago).
We must invest in sensible alternatives to Russian oil and gas, not engage in wishful thinking about renewable energy
The devastating Russian invasion of Ukraine has captured global attention. While the world’s focus is rightly on the human toll and suffering, the crisis has highlighted the need to end reliance on Russian oil and gas. To achieve that ambition, we must be pragmatic and invest in sensible alternatives, not engage in wishful thinking about renewable energy.
Every single day, the world spends more than US$1 billion on fossil fuels from Russia. As Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted, that money is now paying for the “murder of Ukrainian men, women and children.” We must end this reliance.
Welcome to “Uranium Fever: Uranium Mining, Culture, Health, and the Environment in the Four Corners Region.” This digital museum exhibit showcases images and documents from Fort Lewis College’s Center of Southwest Studies’ collections on uranium mining and uranium mill tailings removal.
During the post-World War II era, government officials and industry executives harkened to a mythologized version of the country’s frontier legacy to promote a uranium boom that fueled the Cold War arms race and nuclear energy development.
LVIV, Ukraine/KYIV, March 4 (Reuters) – Russian invasion forces seized Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant on Friday in what Washington called a reckless assault that risked catastrophe, although a blaze in a training building was extinguished and officials said the facility was now safe.
Combat raged elsewhere in Ukraine as Russian forces surrounded and bombarded several cities in the second week of the assault launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
https://www.thestar.com/business/
It is worrisome that by 2050, humanity might still be relying on fossil fuels for about 70 per cent of its energy consumption, down hardly at all from 80 per cent today.
Renewables, including hydropower, solar, wind and biofuels, will account for just 27 per cent of energy consumption by 2050, according to projections by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
In the fall, when Russia began deploying more than 100,000 troops to Ukrainian border areas, prices for all forms of energy, especially natural gas, rose – and kept rising. The painful energy bills triggered a reassessment of Europe’s energy policies.
How did Europe become so dependent on gas imports? Would the lights go out if Russia were to invade? Did Europe vastly overestimate the ability of green power to fill the energy gap? Was it a mistake to phase out nuclear and coal-fired plants?
If Russia embarks on a full-scale invasion of Ukraine—as military maneuvering suggests it might—US intelligence officials estimate that between 25,000 to 50,000 civilians could die.
An additional 5,000 to 25,000 Ukrainian soldiers and 3,000 to 10,000 Russian soldiers could also be killed. While the toll on human life would be steep, a full-scale military invasion would also have long-lasting environmental impacts in Ukraine.
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/
It is not the purpose in this article to give full details on the EU Taxonomy for Sustainable Financing, a process launched more than three years ago by the European Commission. A summary will be provided instead, allowing then to move towards a broader reflection on the European electricity system launched 30 years ago, and under constant reform … and which does not work as desired.
The harsh discussions in Brussels and the European capitals on the inclusion of nuclear and gas in the Taxonomy, combined with the energy crisis directly impacting the European citizens in their daily life, provide an opportunity to take a step aside and understand the need for a deep reform of the electricity system in Europe.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
The uranium industry is in the early stages of a second act as some countries turn to nuclear power to help reduce their carbon footprints, but skepticism abounds about how long its moment in the sun will last.
Cameco Corp. last week announced plans to ramp up uranium production at its massive McArthur River mine in northern Saskatchewan. The company mothballed the mine in 2018 amid a prolonged uranium slump precipitated by the meltdown of the Fukushima power plant in Japan.
550 workers were laid off when mining complex closed in 2018
A Saskatchewan-based uranium company is planning to restart operations at a mining operation that has been shut down for just over four years.
On Wednesday, Cameco announced its plans to restart the McArthur River mine site and Key Lake mill sometime in 2022. Uranium ore from the mine, which is about 630 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon, is processed at the mill, which is about 570 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon.
