Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou said the country will continue to promote wind power generation as it seeks a diversified power supply and independent power generation.
Japan has begun what will likely be the first permanent shutdown of one of its reactors since the Fukushima disaster on the grounds that it is built atop an active earthquake fault.
The controversial Kudankulam nuclear plant in Tamil Nadu state has been given the go-ahead to start operations following a ruling by India's Supreme Court.
The judges said the plant was "safe and secure" and "necessary for the welfare and economic growth of India".
The United States has agreed to actively support South Korea which is seeking to export its nuclear power plants, although government sources also say the countries have failed, at least for now, to renew their bilateral accord on civilian nuclear cooperation.
The first reactor at the Ningde Nuclear Power Station in China’s Fujian Province became operational on Thursday. The 1.09-GW CPR-1000 reactor, which is largely domestically produced, is the first of four that will be running at Ningde by 2015.
The rapid expansion of renewable technologies is one of the few bright spots in an otherwise bleak assessment of global progress towards low-carbon energy, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in an annual report to the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM).
“The drive to clean up the world’s energy system has stalled,” IEA executive director Maria van der Hoeven told the CEM, which brings together ministers representing countries responsible for four-fifths of global greenhouse-gas emissions.
Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has announced that the country added 1.39-GW of clean energy capacity from April 2012 until January this year.
Japan is considering at least 21 new geothermal power projects as it searches for alternative energy sources to replace at least some of its idled nuclear power plants.
Japan's generous feed-in tariff (FiT) scheme for renewable energy, together with the lifting of a moratorium on geothermal prospecting in national parks, has sparked a revival in interest in the sector which hasn't seen any new capacity added since 1999. The government is guaranteeing smaller geothermal plants a rate of JPN40 (40 US cents) per kWh after tax (the same level as the FiT for solar energy) while plants of over 15-MW capacity get JPY27.3 (27.4 US cents).
A power outage at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear station which brought water pumps used to cool spent uranium fuel to a stop has been brought under control.
Japan’s new Liberal Democratic Party administration, under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, seems to have further broadcast its pro-nuclear intentions after removing anti-nuclear researchers from an official energy policy advisory board.
According to a report by China’s National Development and Reform Commission presented to the ongoing annual parliamentary session, the country will add another 3.24-GW, of nuclear power this year, representing a 20 percent increase in capacity.
Yesterday thousands of protesters were out in the streets of Tokyo calling for the Japanese Government to forgo nuclear power, a day before the second anniversary of an earthquake and tsunami that triggered the world's worst atomic disaster in 25 years.
The nuclear meltdown at Tokyo Electric Power's (Tepco) Fukushima Daiichi plant forced 160,000 people from their homes, to which many will never return. It also sparked an unprecedented protest movement against nuclear power.
Officials behind China's self-developed nuclear reactor, known as the CAP1400, expect to sign the first overseas deals for the technology this year, most likely from South America or Asia, according to a report in the China Daily yesterday.
In a sign that Japan is to restart its idled reactors, Areva, the French energy group said it was preparing to send the first nuclear fuel shipment to Japan since the Fukushima disaster of March, 2011.
The shipment of mixed oxide fuel (MOX) is likely to be controversial in Japan, where public opposition to nuclear power and reactor restarts remains strong in the run-up to the second anniversary of the March 11, 2011 catastrophe.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is going to ask US President Barack Obama to allow shale gas export to relieve Japan’s soaring energy cost after 2011’s nuclear disaster.
This report by the World Bank spells out what the world would be like if it warmed by 4 degrees Celsius, which is what scientists are nearly unanimously predicting by the end of the century, without serious policy changes.
Companies in Asia reveal expectations that regulations that could lead to rising costs for reporting and reducing GHG emissions will also be the main sources of climate-related business opportunities.
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