NUCLEAR DEVELOPMENTS

They don’t get much bigger than Duke Energy so when Duke goes Nuclear, something’s probably coming.

Duke CEO joins Nuclear Energy Institute board
January 11, 2007 (Charlotte Business Journal via Yahoo News)
- The Nuclear Energy Institute has added Duke Energy Corp. Chief Executive Jim Rogers to its executive committee and board of directors…

- All U.S. nuclear power plant licensees and selected representatives of other companies involved in nuclear technologies are members of the NEI board…
- The NEI, based in Washington, D.C., establishes policies that promote the beneficial uses of nuclear energy and technologies, and the executive committee sets broad policy for the industry.

Rogers was among the CEOs urging Congress to enact Carpon-Cap-and-Trade legislation. Because his company is going big on nuclear? And, as the Germans are being told, you’ve got to go big on nuclear to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Berlin warned on phasing out nuclear energy
Bertrand Benoit, January 22, 2007 (Financial Times via Yahoo News)

- Germany will miss its CO2 emission targets, face rising electricity prices and become "dramatically" more reliant on Russian gas if it keeps to its policy of phasing out nuclear energy…
- [A] 60-page paper by Deutsche Bankwill add to the pressure on Angela Merkel, chancellor, to renegotiate the phase-out deal agreed by the previous government in 2000, despite her pledge not to reopen the controversial debate.
- Rising concern about global warming and energy security have sparked a lively dispute…

- Without nuclear energy, the bank says, the chancellor faces a painful choice between the three goals she has set herself - to reduce emissions, cut reliance on Russian fossil fuel and keep energy prices in check…
- A spokesman for the environment ministry said Germany's goal of cutting CO2 emissions by 40 per cent of their 1990 level by 2020 "can be achieved without nuclear energy. But of course, nobody ever said it would be easy."
- …With nuclear covering 25 per cent of Germany's electricity needs - and taking into account rising electricity demand and the need to replace old fossil-fuel plants - DB calculates 42,000MW of new plants will be needed by 2022.