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Prime minister Scott Morrison insisted on Thursday morning that the landmark nuclear submarine deal struck with US president Joe Biden and UK prime minister Boris Johnson won’t translate into a push for nuclear power plants in Australia.



Renew Economy

Morrison says sub deal won’t lead to nuclear power push in Australia. Don’t believe him

Since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, more than 1m tonnes of radioactive water has been building up at the power plant in central Japan. Soon the plant will run out of space to store the water, which is a big problem. The plan at the moment is to dump it all in the sea. So how do you go about making 1m tonnes of radioactive water, safe to drink? 

The Guardian

How Japan is making 1 million tonnes of radioactive water safe – video

The demands that the IEA revise its World Energy Outlook are based on contradictions and unrealistic expectations of the scenarios' impact.

Forbes

The Unscientific Attack On The IEA’s World Energy Outlook

With India is exploring multiple options to lower its carbon footprint, the government on Tuesday said the country would produce three times more nuclear power from its current level and called for greater India-US cooperation for clean energy.

The Times of India

India to increase nuclear energy capacity three times in next 10 years

Officials at Japan's wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant have acknowledged they neglected to investigate the cause of faulty exhaust filters that are key to preventing radioactive pollution, after being forced to replace them twice.

Tech Xplore

Fukushima plant failed to probe cause of faulty filters

Nations are coming to grips with their overdependence on renewables, and reconsidering their closure of nuclear plants

Skyrocketing Natural Gas Prices Create New Opportunity For Nuclear Energy

China is poised to test a thorium-powered nuclear reactor in September, the world’s first since 1969. The theory is that this new molten-salt technology will be “safer” and “greener” than regular uranium reactors, and so could help Beijing meet its climate goals. Yet is the country's investment in this also geostrategic?

France24

Why China is developing a game-changing thorium-fuelled nuclear reactor

The best, safest, least expensive solution to nuclear waste gets a near-unanimous bipartisan negative vote from the Texas Legislature. Lawmakers banned storage of high-level radioactive waste in Texas, including spent nuclear fuel, at their approved nuclear waste disposal site near Andrews, Texas.

Atomic Chickens: Texas Lawmakers Reject Proven Plan To Store Nuclear Waste

Iran and the UN’s nuclear agency reached an agreement on Sunday and said talks will continue later this month.

Al Jazeera

IAEA and Iran reach agreement to avert nuclear deal crisis

An energy deal to prop up two nuclear power plants that Exelon said it would close also requires coal-fired power plants to shutter by 2045.

The deal passed the House late Thursday and goes to the Senate next. The Senate is set to return to Springfield on Monday, Senate President Don Harmon said in a statement.

Advantage News

Deal to subsidize nuclear power, close coal plants passes Illinois House

Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency asked Japan on Tuesday for full and detailed information about a plan to release treated but still radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean.

IAEA seeks Japan transparency in release of Fukushima water

China’s natural experiment in deploying low-carbon energy generation shows that wind and solar are the clear winners.



CleanTechnica

A Decade Of Wind, Solar, & Nuclear In China Shows Clear Scalability Winners

An International Atomic Energy Agency mission arrived in Japan on Monday to help prepare for a decades-long release into the ocean of treated but still radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant, officials said.

IAEA team in Japan to help prepare Fukushima water release

South Korean power infrastructure firm Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction will partner with U.S.-based X-energy on developing and designing tests for advanced high temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) technologies.



Power Engineering International

Doosan Heavy to lead X-energy’s study on SMR nuclear reactor design

The US Department of Energy (DOE) and Norway’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to advance a cooperative project to eliminate all of Norway’s highly enriched uranium (HEU) by downblending it to low-enriched uranium. The MoU calls for downblending activities to begin in 2022 using Norway's existing infrastructure, followed by the eventual deployment of the DOE's Mobile Melt-Consolidate system.

World Nuclear News

US, Norway work together to eliminate HEU

South African power utility Eskom confirmed that Koeberg Unit 1 Reactor tripped at 16:30 on Monday, 30 August 2021, due to a fault on the electrical breaker to one of the primary coolant pumps.



ESI Africa

Eskom confirms Unit 1 reactor trip at Koeberg Nuclear Power Plant

The South African New Nuclear Build Platform (SANBP) congratulated Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe and the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) for taking the bold step towards a future of a clean, reliable and sustainable energy mix, which will reinvigorate the devastated construction industry and bring economic growth and jobs.



SANBP calls for collaboration between nuclear and renewables

Nuclear power plants “have a critical role in producing low-carbon hydrogen” according to a former shadow energy minister in the UK.



Why nuclear energy can help deliver a green hydrogen economy

Ignore the myths about nuclear power, writes Rob Loveday of Generation Atomic – it is an essential source of clean energy. The letter on nuclear energy (25 August) sadly could not be more wrong – nuclear is one of the cleanest fuels we have, and has always been so. The carbon and material footprints of nuclear – for its entire lifetime, including mining and decommissioning – are lower than solar and on a par with wind, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Moreover, the nuclear industry manages its waste stream – that is more than can be said for the solar industry, which is set to produce millions of tons of toxic waste. Besides, spent nuclear fuel is not “waste” but a valuable source of low-carbon energy that can be recycled via reprocessing or proposed breeder reactors, thereby neutralising the vast majority of the radioactivity. 

Nuclear energy is key in fight for climate | Letter

The Sizewell B nuclear power station in the United Kingdom is generating electricity again after being offline nearly four months for planning refueling and maintenance upgrades.

EDF completes upgrade outage on UKs 1.2GW Sizewell B nuclear plant

In a media statement, the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) welcomed the National Electricity Regulator of South Africa’s (Nersa) concurrence of 26 August 2021 with regards to the Ministerial Determination in terms of section 34 of the Electricity Regulation Act, 2006 (Act No. 4 of 2006) with respect to 2,500MW of new nuclear energy generation capacity.



South African new nuclear power build gets nod from Nersa

North Korea appears to have restarted a nuclear reactor that is widely believed to have produced plutonium for nuclear weapons, the UN atomic watchdog has said in an annual report.

The Straits Times

North Korea appears to have restarted nuclear reactor: IAEA

Power from fusion has proved too hard to generate at scale. Can recent breakthroughs and massive investment change that?. On 8 August 2021, a laser-initiated experiment at the United States National Ignition Facility (NIF), based at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, made a significant breakthrough in reproducing the power source of the stars, smashing its own 2018 record for energy released from nuclear fusion reactions 23 times over. This advance saw 70% of the laser energy put in released as nuclear energy. A pulse of light, focused to tiny spots within a 10-metre diameter vacuum chamber, triggered the collapse of a capsule of fuel from roughly the size of the pupil in your eye to the diameter of a human hair. This implosion created the extreme conditions of temperature and pressure needed for atoms of hydrogen to combine into new atoms and release, kilogram for kilogram, 10m times the energy that would result from burning coal. The result is tantalisingly close to a demonstration of “net energy gain”, the long sought-after goal of fusion scientists in which an amount greater than 100% of the energy put into a fusion experiment comes out as nuclear energy. The aim of these experiments is – for now – to show proof of principle only: that energy can be generated. The team behind the success are very close to achieving this: they have managed a more than 1,000-fold improvement in energy release between 2011 and today. Prof Jeremy Chittenden, co-director of the Centre for Inertial Fusion Studies at Imperial College London, said last month that “The pace of improvement in energy output has been rapid, suggesting we may soon reach more energy milestones, such as exceeding the energy input from the lasers used to kickstart the process.” 

The race to give nuclear fusion a role in the climate emergency

Scientists have attached dosimeters to the reptiles so they can serve as living “bioindicators” to gauge contamination levels near the shuttered nuclear power plant.

Wired

Radioactive Rat Snakes Could Help Monitor Fukushima Fallout

Scientists at the US Department of Energy’s flagship laser facility shattered their own record earlier this month by generating more than 10 quadrillion watts of fusion power for a fraction of a second — roughly 700 times the generating capacity of the entire US electrical grid at any given moment.

Nature

US achieves laser-fusion record: what it means for nuclear-weapons research

The Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) announced that its operating and maintenance subsidiary, Nawah Energy Company (Nawah) has successfully started up Unit 2 of the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant, located in the Al Dhafra Region of Abu Dhabi Emirate, United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Gulf News

UAE’s Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant Unit 2 starts operations

Hurricane Ida is approaching the U.S. Gulf Coast region—home to key U.S. energy infrastructure—and is expected to make landfall on August 29. Hurricane Ida could affect local energy supply and demand, especially for transportation fuels and electricity. Our Energy Disruptions Map shows storm-related geographic data (also referred to as map layers) from the National Hurricane Center and the National Weather Service and map layers for energy-related infrastructure such as high-voltage transmission lines, power plants, and petroleum bulk terminals.

EIA's mapping system and data series show energy infrastructure near Hurricane Ida

Too little is known about melted fuel inside damaged reactors at the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant, even a decade after the disaster, to be able to tell if its decommissioning can be finished by 2051 as planned, a U.N. nuclear agency official said Friday.

UN team: Unclear if Fukushima cleanup can finish by 2051

Japanese government claims water from nuclear plant released through 1km tunnel will be safe as all radioactive elements will have been removed .  Operators of Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear plant have unveiled plans to construct an undersea tunnel to release more than a million tonnes of treated water from the site into the ocean. Plans for the 1km tunnel were announced on Wednesday after the Japanese government decided in April to release the accumulated water in two years’ time. 

Fukushima operators to build undersea tunnel to dump contaminated water

Cardiff government set to appoint leading executive to pursue Trawsfynydd project

Financial Times

Wales advances its plans for small nuclear plants

Congress is set to cut off funding for the very reactor we need to move nuclear power forward. Called the VTR, it will test new types of reactors that will get ten times the energy of existing reactors and create nuclear waste that is easier to handle and isn’t hot for very long.

There Is Still Time To Save U.S. Global Leadership In Nuclear Energy If Congress Doesn’t Cut Off The VTR To Spite Its Face

The operator of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant said Wednesday it plans to build an undersea tunnel so that massive amounts of treated but still radioactive water can be released into the ocean about 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) away from the plant to avoid interference with local fishing.

Fukushima nuclear water to be released via undersea tunnel

Nuclear power is a significant source of steady carbon-neutral electricity, making the design and construction of new and next-generation nuclear reactors critical for achieving the U.S."s green energy goals.

Extending nuclear power accident computer code for advanced reactor designs

New nuclear build enhances system-level energy security, increases the resilience of the electricity grid and helps to reduce dependency on energy imports states a study by the New Nuclear Watch Institute (NNWI).



Study confirms nuclear capacity essential to energy security

Investment in next generation nuclear capacity could prove to be a crucial component of net zero strategies. Having had a torrid time over the last two decades, the nuclear power industry is at a crossroads. Some countries are pushing ahead with phase-out plans, while others – notably China – are rapidly expanding reactor fleets. In our view, investment in next generation nuclear capacity will be key to meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement.



Wood Mackenzie

What role will nuclear power play in the energy transition?

The San Onofre nuclear power plant shut down years ago – but residents and experts worry what will happen with the waste left behind. More than 2 million visitors flock each year to California’s San Onofre state beach, a dreamy slice of coastline just north of San Diego. The beach is popular with surfers, lies across one of the largest Marine Corps bases in the Unites States and has a 10,000-year-old sacred Native American site nearby. It even landed a shout-out in the Beach Boys’ 1963 classic Surfin’ USA. But for all the good vibes and stellar sunsets, beneath the surface hides a potential threat: 3.6m lb of nuclear waste from a group of nuclear reactors shut down nearly a decade ago. Decades of political gridlock have left it indefinitely stranded, susceptible to threats including corrosion, earthquakes and sea level rise. 

‘A combination of failures:’ why 3.6m pounds of nuclear waste is buried under a popular California beach

Communities react with shock to  news  they are being considered as locations for underground facility. The long-running battle to build an underground nuclear waste facility in the north of England has run into fresh problems, as communities reacted with shock to the news that they were being considered as locations. The north-east port town of Hartlepool is one of the sites in the frame as a potential site for a geological disposal facility (GDF), while a former gas terminal point at Theddlethorpe, near the Lincolnshire coast, is another. Cumbria, where much of the waste is stored above ground, is also being considered. 

Nuclear storage plans for north of England stir up local opposition

Nuclear fusion offers near limitless power from minimal fuel but the challenge for scientists is taming it

In building the heart of a star, humans inch closer to net zero

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) hosted a subcommittee recommending a plan to procure 2,500MW of new nuclear power.



New nuclear build back on the table for South Africa

Scientists used an unconventional method of creating nuclear fusion to yield a record-breaking burst of energy of more than 10 quadrillion watts, by firing intense beams of light from the world's largest lasers at a tiny pellet of hydrogen.



LiveScience

Fusion experiment breaks record, blasts out 10 quadrillion watts of power

The Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant has become one of the first plants in the world to use 3D-printed fuel assembly brackets.

Mining.com

Nuclear plant in Alabama now uses 3D-printed components

As the world grapples with a climate emergency brought on by carbon emissions from the large-scale burning of fossil fuels, there is renewed interest in nuclear energy, specifically in the new generation of small modular reactors.

Can small modular reactors mitigate climate change?

According to three individuals acquainted with the Russian government’s decision, the Russian government has agreed to invest about 80 million rubles ($1.09 billion) for Rosatom‘s initiative to build low-power nuclear power plants (NPPs) in 2021-2024, Kommersant writes.

Russia Business Today 

Russia is Interested in Building Tiny Nuclear Power Plants

Warsaw’s decarbonisation drive reflects the stark choices for EU states to meet the bloc’s ambitious climate goals 

Betting on nuclear: Poland’s plan to kick its coal habit  

From Mary Shelley’s sole survivor to David Farrier’s survey of the traces we leave behind … author Cal Flyn on the most potent predictions. We humans have a profound impact on the world around us. Bob Paine, the groundbreaking American ecologist, once described us as a “hyperkeystone” species: our actions affect the lives and habitats of other creatures more than any other species on Earth. So much so, some scientists have adopted the term Anthropocene to refer to the current era, defined by atomic testing, the climate crisis and the development of plastics. Evidence of human activity will survive long after we are gone, both within the fossil record and in the state of the planet more generally, which we will have influenced in long-reaching and unpredictable ways.  

The best books about the post-human Earth

This week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its Sixth Assessment Report, which warns that we will not be able to limit global warming to even 2°C unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in carbon emissions. 
Spoiler Alert – it’s already too late.

Latest IPCC Report Predicts Disaster - Yet Again. But Not Much Will Happen - Yet Again.

Sandia National Laboratories and its nuclear security enterprise partners recently completed the first production unit of a weapon assembly responsible for key operations of the W88 nuclear warhead.

With redesigned 'brains,' W88 nuclear warhead reaches milestone

Infrastructure development company, Jacobs has been selected to carry out essential engineering modifications as part of a $1.2 billion programme to extend the operating life of the Koeberg Nuclear Power Plant near Cape Town, South Africa.



Jacobs to support life extension of South Africa’s nuclear plant

Research suggests that we can power 80% of the United States with wind, solar, and 12 hours of energy storage, but the replacement of nuclear power plants hasn’t been financially viable. Is that about to change?



PV Magazine

Solar challenging nuclear as potential climate change solution

Energy Trend

Nearly 100 Members of the European Parliament Urge the Inclusion of Nuclear Power as a Sustainable Energy for the EU Through a Joint Letter

Power & Utilities | Nuclear

The California Air Resources Board has adopted a regulation that requires truck and engine manufacturers to reduce the nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions from new heavy-duty trucks by 90 percent starting in 2027. NOx from heavy-duty trucks is one of the main sources of air pollution, creating smog and threatening respiratory health. This regulation requires the largest air pollution cuts in California in more than a decade. How can manufacturers achieve this aggressive goal efficiently and affordably?

The benefits of high-efficiency, flexible-fuel engines for heavy-duty trucking

Gransolar's 63.2 MWdc solar plant puts into operation

Ofgem said failure to provide this information could potentially lead to a breach of the supplier’s licence conditions



Energy Live News

Avro Energy ordered to disclose financial information about its activities

Coal plants being warmed up as market prices surge to £2,500 per MWh from a norm of £40. A major fire has forced the shutdown of one of Britain’s most important power cables importing electricity from France as the UK faces a supply crunch and record high market prices. National Grid was forced to evacuate staff from the site of the IFA high-voltage power cable, which brings electricity from France to a converter station in Kent, where 12 fire engines attended the blaze in the early hours of Wednesday morning. 

Fire shuts one of UK’s most important power cables in midst of supply crunch

Argentina’s three leading petro-province governors suffered defeats on Sunday, representing a blow to their political power and providing signals about 2023 gubernatorial candidates in the provinces.

A Dismal Day For Argentina’s Principal Petro-Province Governors

Interconnector is likely to be out of commission for at least four weeks, French operator says

Fire at UK-France electricity subsea cable sparks new price surge

Tata Power announced in early September that its subsidiary TP Saurya has received an official letter of award from Rewa Ultra Mega Solar for the development of a 330MW portion of the 500MW Neemuch Solar Park in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The 330MW portion is divided into two contracts, one being 170MW and the other being 160MW. According to the coverage by local news agencies and energy news websites, the price for the 170MW contract is INR 2.14, whereas the price for the 160MW contract is INR 2.149. TP Saurya won the contracts through a process that include tariff-based competitive bidding and an e-reverse auction. Rewa Ultra Solar is an entity that has the Indian government as one of its major investors, and Tata Power is a utility owned by the Indian industrial conglomerate the Tata Group.

Tata Power to Develop a 330MW Portion of a Solar Park in Central India

Taipower’s First Cloud Data Center Construction Begins, Expected to be Completed in 2024

Spain has announced a €3bn raid on energy companies’ profits and temporary tax cuts for consumers as it tries to contain political damage caused by soaring electricity and gas prices that have put pressure on governments across Europe.


Spain to claw back €3bn from utility groups as energy prices soar

 Italy's electricity bills are set to increase by 40% in the next quarter after rising by 20% in the last one, Ecological Transition Minister Roberto Cingolani said on Monday during a conference organized by the CGIL trade union in Genoa. "We have to face these things," Cingolani said. "This is happening because the price of gas at the international level is increasing, it is happening because the price of CO2 is increasing"

ANSA

Italy's electric bills set to go up 40%

As Category 4 Hurricane Ida made landfall along the Southeast coast of Louisiana near New Orleans on August 29, 2021, the electric load in the southern region of the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) decreased. Hourly electric loads on August 30, the day after landfall, were about 25% to 30% lower than the average for that time of year over the past six years. Southern MISO experienced a similar decline in electric load last year when Hurricane Laura made landfall.

Electric load in southern MISO fell as Hurricane Ida moved through Louisiana

Renews Ltd provides news-focused coverage through unrivalled insights into the inner workings of offshore and onshore wind, wave and tidal power and other generation technologies.

Renews

Wartsila supplies battery to decarbonise Oz mine 

Toshiba‘s polymer film-based perovskite module achieves15.1% power conversion efficiency

Zhongli investes in 2 GW power plant

The soaring cost of natural gas and a warm, dry and windless start to autumn 2021 have conspired to create one almighty headache for energy consumers in the UK and the rest of Europe. Renewable sources of power, such as wind, are generating less energy than expected and networks are burning more fossil fuels which are rapidly rising in price. Combined with the fact that some generators are mothballed over summer and have yet to restart, the result is wholesale electricity prices surpassing their highest ever level.

The Conversation

Electricity prices have reached record highs – and the time-poor could suffer most

Natural gas and electricity markets were already surging in Europe when a fresh catalyst emerged: The wind in the stormy North Sea stopped blowing. The sudden slowdown in wind-driven electricity production off the coast of the U.K. in recent weeks whipsawed through regional energy markets. Gas and coal-fired electricity plants were called in to make up the shortfall from wind.

The Wall Street Journal

Energy Prices in Europe Hit Records After Wind Stops Blowing

The Coalition government’s flagship Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro project has suffered another blow out in costs, this time to one of the major transmission links that is key to deliver its storage services to the rest of the grid.



Snowy 2.0 hit by another blow out in costs, and consumers will foot the bill

A Solar Futures Study released by the Department of Energy (DOE) projects that solar generation could achieve nearly 50% of the power production mix by 2050, contingent on large federal government infrastructure investments.

Big Money For Solar, As Biden Targets Half Of U.S. Electricity From The Sun By 2050

Many more households will be forced into “desperate” measures such as rationing their heating this winter, charities have warned, as a global gas supply crunch, low wind output and strong demand continued to push energy prices across Europe higher.

In the UK, day-ahead power prices hit £540 per megawatt hour on Monday, the highest level since 2008, according to the consultancy Cornwall Insight. The equivalent gas price reached a new all-time high of £1.51 per therm.


Energy prices hit new records as charities warn of ‘heat rationing’

Whether coming from politicians, ESG insiders, or competing industries, the assertion that natural gas demand is somehow going away, and investments in new supply are thus unwarranted, is demonstrably false. Putin is counting on such Energy Unrealism.

The Obvious Delusion Of ‘No More Natural Gas’

Facing a steep and unpopular increase in power prices, the Polish government wants electricity invoices to specify the additional costs households face due to European Union climate policies. The bloc’s most coal-dependent nation will need to increase regulated power prices for consumers after the cost of emitting carbon-dioxide almost doubled this year. Utilities may ask the regulator to raise prices by 40% in 2022, according to Radio Zet, a move that would further stoke inflation, which is already at a two-decade high. Premier Mateusz Morawiecki said power prices won’t rise as much as that, but are under pressures as Poland faces massive investments to meet EU climate goals. It will cost $415 billion, or about two-thirds of its gross domestic product, for the country to reach the bloc’s net zero emissions goal by 2050, according to government estimates.

BNN Bloomberg

Poland Wants to Detail EU Role in Surging Electricity Prices

Hive Energy launched JV to develop 350MW of PV in New Zealand

Konecranes will supply cranes to one of the world’s largest Waste-to-Energy (WtE) plants in Dubai. The contract, booked in December 2020, underscores Konecranes’ commitment to helping customers and industries grow and transform so they run more efficiently, sustainably, and safely. The cranes will be delivered to the site in 2022, with handover in 2024.



Energy Global

Konecranes equipment used for Waste-to-Energy plants in Dubai

Long-running legal battle with national government nears conclusion



Insider

Cairn Energy plans £500m shareholder distribution from Indian tax dispute

Tesla's supercharger network is the best, but getting their CHAdeMO adapter offers the best of both worlds, filling in gaps and is often like having a car with more range.

You Want Tesla’s CHAdeMO Adapter For EV Roadtrips — Form A Club

Brazil largely relies on hydropower for electricity generation; in 2020, hydropower supplied 66% of its electricity demand. Wind and solar generation have grown quickly in recent years and had a combined 11% share of the country's electricity generation in 2020. Biomass accounted for an 8% share. Fossil fuel-fired plants made up another 12% of electricity generation, while nuclear power accounted for 2%.

Hydropower made up 66% of Brazil's electricity generation in 2020

Imagine an electric grid powered by clean, renewable energy. Now imagine that this grid provides all the comfort and convenience consumers have come to expect as well as grid reliability and resiliency services that are similar to—or better than—conventional plants. That is the promise of the FlexPower project.



Hybrid Power Plants & Flexibility — The Future Of The Grid

Rising prices may spur populist backlash as generators switch to renewable fuels

Europe’s power companies still rely on coal despite green plans

ACWA Power to list on Saudi Stock Exchange

Baltic Power opens tender for onshore grid works

Sri Lanka Plans to Increase Solar Power Capacity by Another 4.8GW and Wind Power Capacity by Another 3.5GW

Will the future of the energy market be more decentralized, fuelled by incentives for off-grid, wireless power?

Off-Grid Power Will Be Our New Norm

Many everyday activities rely on electricity. As we look to 2050, this dependence is set to increase, with demand for electricity in Switzerland likely to rise to 50 percent. The increased demand can only be met by transforming the energy system.

A carbon-neutral response to rising electricity demand

Dry natural gas production from shale formations in the Appalachian Basin that spans Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio has been growing since 2008, and monthly production has recently set new record highs. Production in the region reached 32.5 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in December 2020, and it averaged 31.9 Bcf/d during the first half of 2021, the highest average for a six-month period since production began in 2008. The Appalachian Basin contains two shale formations, Marcellus and Utica, which accounted for 34% of all U.S. dry natural gas production in 2021. On its own, the Appalachian Basin would have been the third-largest natural gas producer in the world the first half of 2021, behind Russia and the rest of the United States.

Shale natural gas production in the Appalachian Basin sets records in first half of 2021

In the first seven months of the year, the country deployed 3.2 GW of PV, which compares to 2.8 GW a year earlier.



Germany installed another 400 MW of PV in July

Network companies, system operators, businesses and researchers can bid for the funding to help the UK accelerate its transition to an emissions-free energy system



Ofgem offers £450m for greener ways to heat and power homes and businesses

Origin Energy, Australia’s biggest energy retailer, has agreed to team with Japan’s largest oil refiner, Eneos, to explore the potential for a commercial-scale green hydrogen supply chain between their respective home markets.



Australian energy retailer, Japanese oil refiner team up on green hydrogen

Entergy said on Monday that Hurricane Ida had put 216 substations and more than 2,000 miles of transmission lines out of service.

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